Where Moonlit Roads Meet
by Newtype Omega
Summary: Two people stumbling along on separate paths in the fading moonlight; one uncertain and the other heartbroken, almost unwilling. Yet after so many years and against all odds, their paths converged that night, and their lives would never be the same.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Let me begin by saying that losing a bet against Rave the Rich is probably the best way to lose a bet, given the circumstances.

That being said, welcome to the official prequel for **Giving of Yourself**! This has been on the concept table since the Ravens creamed the Redskins, whom I foolishly placed my hopes in, and as a result, Rave and I have hammered out the rough concept for this story. The rest is my imagination running amok in his established "All Roads" universe, specifically concerning how Kelly and May's relationship got started on a fateful night during a lunar eclipse. MinamoShipping isn't my main interest in the Pokémon franchise, but I will admit that thanks largely to Rave's works, it's fastly growing on me.

Many MANY thanks go out to both _Rave the Rich_ and _JbstormburstADV_ for volunteering their valuable time and considerable minds to beta-editing this story. Without these two, it's unlikely that WMRM would have ever become anything more than a fanciful notion talked about between good friends over instant messenger. I just wanna take the time right now to say "Thanks Guys! Couldn't have done it without you!" ^_^

Without further adieu, let us begin.

*****

**Act One**

*****

Wednesday

August 13, 2008

14:23 HST

Petalburg City Gym

May sighed loudly as she hefted yet another of the boxes containing her possessions back into her room. She knew that she'd been putting this off for a reason and being the only one home today wasn't really helping matters as she went about unpacking all of the belongings she brought back from her stay in Lilycove City.

This was the sixth box she's brought up from the garage since she started this morning in an attempt to find a place in her room for all the stuff she packed up in her temporary apartment that she stayed in all two months while she attended a class taught by her old acquaintance, now an assistant professor, Kelly Cruz-Marin.

THAT had been quite the shocker for her nearly two months ago, seeing Kelly waltz into the lab where she, and about nine other people, had been patiently awaiting the arrival of their instructor and proceed to write her name on the whiteboard in blue erasable marker following the title 'assistant professor'.

To say that May's jaw had unceremoniously unhinged and slammed into the ground with bone-jarring force would be putting it lightly. In all the time that she'd known her, May had never pegged Kelly as a _wunderkind_ outside of her passion for Pokéblock. It seemed like May hadn't really known her at all in the brief time they'd met all those years ago back when she had just gotten started on her journey.

Shaking her head in an attempt to banish that somewhat embarrassing memory, May began to unpack the box she sliced open at her feet, taking a moment to assess its contents. This was her study box, containing two thick textbooks and a number of graded papers as well as her notebook from the class that she'd nearly filled to its limit.

As she unpacked all the accumulated summer schoolwork, she smiled at the thought of Kelly scribbling endlessly on the whiteboard, her hand struggling to keep up with her explanations as she rattled off the intricacies of Pokéblock and its creation in a manner similar to how most people would talk about the weather. To say the least, she and her fellow students had felt like they were getting carpal-tunnel syndrome keeping up with their young, but knowledgeable professor.

May had been very impressed with the air that Kelly had in the classroom, simultaneously projecting a commanding aura that always seemed to guide their discussions and lectures in the right direction while also demonstrating the amount of care she had for all of her students. She never failed to recognize when a student's hand was raised and sometimes even beat them to the punch, pointing to them and acknowledging that they had a question when their hand barely made it to shoulder-level.

It had been weird for her at first, sitting in a classroom being taught by someone a year younger than herself, but Kelly had effectively blown any notion of incompetence out of the water within the first fifteen minutes of setting foot into the classroom, almost like she had done so countless times before.

May opened her notebook to a random page and instantly recognized what occurred on this day of class, since it was covered in Kelly's unique shorthand scribble that May had gotten all too skilled at deciphering. It had been roughly two weeks into the course and May had been struggling with one particular recipe that she had been tailoring specifically for fire-type Pokémon; more specifically, her Blaziken.

Kelly had taken a quick look, spent another two minutes scribbling all over the page, and then proceeded to spend an entire ten minutes explaining to May that the reason it wasn't as appetizing as she thought was because the mixture of berries she'd chosen wasn't acidic enough, leaving the flavor bland and lacking in the eyes of the Cyndaquil who served as a taste-tester that day.

Moments like that had quickly become some of May's fondest memories this summer, where only months ago, she'd been abysmally depressed over her ex-boyfriend's betrayal of sleeping with another girl behind her back. A girl she KNEW and had RESPECTED no less, Dawn Berlitz herself.

She shook her head violently. That was too close to home right now. If she went down that road, she was certain it would drive her crazy or turn her into a junkie of some kind. She looked around her room at some of the few available spaces on her few bookshelves and decided that these deserved the last open spot above her desk. When she realized they wouldn't all fit, she hastily took stock of what else was on the shelf and discarded about ten large volume fashion magazines without giving it another thought.

Before she threw them aside to later add to the family recycling bin, however, she took a moment to consider specifically what was in the volumes. She thumbed through five of them often enough when she'd been dating Drew to throw them aside instantly, knowing that the reason she'd kept those in the first place was for ideas on how to add a little zing into their relationship. Some of the numbers sported by the models in those magazines were pretty racy with exposed backs and mid-slit legs; among several other ways to reveal the female form while not appearing trashy.

The other five she hadn't sorted through in several months, long before her break-up with the emerald-haired idiot. They had been more to her personal taste, emphasizing comfort and more subtle senses of style than the first five. Oddly, enough, this brought Kelly into her thoughts, with May imagining her in some of the magazine's attire. After all; jeans, loafers, and white button-up shirts were things that Kelly often wore to the lab during class.

One day, and one day ONLY out of an entire eight weeks, she dressed in a skirt, button-up shirt, and suit jacket. Everyone wondered exactly why Kelly had gone to such lengths and why she arrived so early to the classroom, requiring everyone else to as well, and explained that another professor would be sitting in on their class today to evaluate her as per the University's Teacher Evaluation Standards.

That day alone had convinced May that Kelly could easily sport any kind of attire she wanted, since she made every effort to keep in shape and maintain her health.

"_Well, sport any attire so long as it doesn't clash with her unique shade of hair,"_ May giggled at the thought.

Now as she broke down the study box and folded it up to use again another day down the road, she grew a little saddened at the continuous thought that had seemed to permeate her life over the past year.

"_All good things must come to an end," _as they said.

First had a been a seven-contest losing streak, not even making it to the quarter finals, though she could now admit to herself that particular SNAFU was due to her relationship troubles with Drew that had been building up at the time. Next had been the breakup itself, which tore her asunder both physically and spiritually, but most of all emotionally. Now it was time to part ways once again with a dear friend, after only two months of being reunited.

Although to be honest, at this point, parting ways with a friend on good terms was something far, far easier to take than the previous two. She felt herself grow a little light headed and she lied down on her bed, concentrating on something basic to keep herself from falling back into the dark pit she'd ostensibly labeled 'DREW'.

Oddly enough, it was her recipe for May's Pink Surprise, something that was so far removed from Drew that it quelled the thoughts almost instantly, remembering much fonder times in much fonder company. She could move the rest of her boxes tomorrow as there were only four left, and right now she was on the verge of wanting to take a nap.

After about thirty minutes of laying around, sleep evaded her and she grew bored enough to wander down the hall to her parent's office, where they kept a very basic computer available for trainers to do things like check e-mail and browse the internet, but that was about it. It was the closest thing the Petalburg Gym had to a public computer, but it was more for her and Max to use whenever they were home.

Logging into her e-mail account, she found a few new messages in her inbox. The very first was obviously spam mail as they somehow managed to misspell her name, so into the trash it went without another thought. She did, however, huff a little in offense at being called "Yam Maple." The second was a quick note from Max, finally having arrived at a Pokémon Center and asking her about how her summer class had turned out.

She drafted him a quick reply, saying that she'd gotten a 'B' for her efforts and a very happy reaction from her Pokémon. While they had liked her recipes before, there had really been little variety in their selection of Pokéblock until just recently. Needless to say, they had ALL vowed to triple their efforts to help their mistress overcome the harsh times that settled upon her and bring them all back into the spotlight where they belonged.

After sending the reply to Max on its way, she erased three more in the junk mail category and found the last new message, arriving sometime early yesterday, was from her old acquaintance Zoey. Opening the e-mail, Zoey's message went on to explain that a little bird, whose name somehow correlated with Max by some miracle, had mentioned she was taking a class on Pokéblock composition and that the class would end around the beginning of August. She described that many of her own Pokéblock weren't bringing out any kind of results with her Shellos and if any of her studies might be able to provide any type of solution.

May immediately went back down the hall and located the appropriate notebook, as she knew almost exactly the type of problem Zoey had described she was having with her water-type Pokémon. Locating the appropriate notes, May spent another ten minutes writing out a very specific solution to the problem, as the Pokéblock recipe alone called for some eight different berries in very specific proportions.

Kelly admitted that she didn't want to fathom how long it took the guy who invented this recipe had spent perfecting it and the proportions and timing in the recipe were frustratingly specific, even requiring a stopwatch for three of the critical steps. Even a deviation as little as three seconds would ruin the entire batch and you'd have to start over.

May also referred Zoey to a website about the disorder her Shellos might start manifesting symptoms for and advised she get it to the closest Nurse Joy possible if she wasn't already at a Pokémon Center. The disorder was treatable though, so she didn't need to panic, just move as fast as her legs would carry her. The earlier the disorder was caught, the less time it took to recover from.

After sending off that massive e-mail to Zoey, marked 'URGENT', she gathered up her books and returned them to their new place above her desk before returning to the room to log out of her e-mail account when she heard a faint sound effect and glanced at the bottom right corner of the screen, which indicated she had just received a new message.

Having nothing better to do, she clicked the icon and opened the seconds-old message and smiled brightly when she saw it was from none other than Professor Kelly herself! The note wasn't very long, but the Subject line had only one word in it that instantly piqued her interest, _Eclipse_.

_Dear May,_

_First off, I hope things are going well for you now that you're settling back in at home. Congratulations on your final exam, which I have in my hands right now! You got a 97, which shouldn't surprise me, but I feel congratulations are in order since it was the highest grade in the class and your first test grade was a not-so-flattering 69. Now then, off comes the professor's hat!_

_I know I enjoyed having you as a student, but for obvious reasons of ethics I couldn't allow myself to show favoritism. So let me first say that if I ever made you feel like I was ignoring you or acted condescending towards you, I apologize. I know I must have come across more as your teacher than your friend, but now that we no longer have a conflict of interests I'd like to make it up to you with a REAL reunion between friends._

_This Saturday night, August 16, marks the first time in ten years that a lunar eclipse will be visible in the Hoenn region and I would like to extend you an invitation to come and watch it with me. I know the perfect place at the highest point outside of the Lilycove City Limits that will give us the best view and there'll be some other watchers that I know out there along with us, so I know we'll be in good company._

_Since you mentioned on your last day of class that you just moved out of your apartment here in Lilycove, I'd be happy to provide Room and Board for you. I have a flat with a guest room all made up about twenty minutes from the university. I've already got most of the stuff we'll need to view the eclipse, so all you would need to bring is a few changes of clothes and any personal affects you typically need while traveling. Since I know it's a day-long bike trip either way, I was hoping we could make a weekend out of it with you hopefully arriving sometime Friday evening, watching the eclipse on Saturday evening, and departing sometime Sunday morning at your leisure._

_I hope this invitation finds you well and gives you enough time to make a decision, since I don't know if you already have other plans. If you could let me know for certain either way, I would greatly appreciate it. _

_Ciao for now,_

_Kelly_

May smiled warmly as she leaned back in the chair and thought about the invitation. She had no plans of her own for this particular weekend and even if there had been a contest she could have entered, she knew that she was nowhere near having her "A" game back on after the fallout with Drew. She figured she'd give herself at least another month before getting back on the road and getting back to Coordinating. She owed her fans and her Pokémon no less after the lousy year she's had.

Despite her certainty at accepting the invitation though, something was niggling in the back of her mind, subconsciously connecting dots that included all the letters they'd written to each other over the years as well as the time she'd spent around Kelly these past two months and now this invitation to the eclipse...

"This...almost sounds like…a DATE," May thought aloud, her head tilted slightly to one side, the expression on her face halfway between stunned and disbelieving.

*****

In an instant, May flashed back to the moment she had caught Drew and Little Ms. Bitch-litz. She briefly detoured to another city on family business for her father's gym and finished that up earlier than expected. She made her way to rendezvous with Drew, fully intent on surprising him at the contest a full two days ahead of schedule.

After arriving at the Pokémon Center, she gave all her Pokémon to Nurse Joy and asked which room Drew was staying in. With that information, she rode the elevator up three floors and stepped off; turning left as she did so, and got the biggest shock of her young life.

There was Drew, stroking his right hand between another girl's legs with her back up against the wall with that TART'S legs wrapped around his waist, her arms around his neck, and her skirt hiked up so far, she was practically flashing the entire hallway as her hips bucked in time with the motions of Drew's hand. In a state of near-total shock, she recognized the girl was none other than her friend, Dawn Berlitz.

So great was May's shock, that it took a full five seconds for Dawn's enthusiastic moaning to finally register in her brain. With it, finally came the gut-wrenching sense of betrayal she would come to know well over the next several weeks. There never have been and never will be words that could accurately describe that feeling. Infinite sadness, infinite pain, infinite anger began to addle her brain.

She must have stood there for a full three minutes, her body begging her to make some kind of response. All the tension, all the shame, all the disappointment that had been steadily increasing over the past several months suddenly reached critical mass. May Maple finally reached her snapping point.

Something inside of her broke.

No.

Something inside of her SHATTERED, beyond any hope of immediate repair.

"DO YOU MI-" Drew's voice died in his throat as he glimpsed the form of his enraged girlfriend, with Dawn following his lead seconds later, her grip tightening on Drew when she saw who had caught them in the act.

Most responsible, sane men would have immediately cowered before her and accepted whatever punishment she deemed fit. It seemed that on that day, Drew was neither.

"May?!" he said, eyes darting between his girlfriend and the young girl currently still wrapping her legs around him. The fact that he hadn't removed his hand from Dawn's panties yet didn't help his case either. "I-I can explain..."

May's response was a bestial roar of outrage that was heard by the local Officer Jenny some ten blocks away as she threw the shopping bag she'd been carrying at the time directly at the offensive pair.

In pure terror, Drew's knees buckled and the bag went rushing right over his and Dawn's heads, heavily denting the vending machine that was directly behind them.

"IF I EVER SEE YOU AGAIN, I WILL CASTRATE YOU AND SHOVE YOUR BALLS DOWN YOUR THROAT!!" May shouted at the top of her lungs before turning and walking towards the stairwell since she didn't trust herself not to continue the assault whilst waiting on the elevator.

May barreled through the stairwell door, slamming it loudly against the reinforced concrete wall, not caring whatsoever if she damaged anything. In a split-second decision, she took the stairs two at a time upwards for the next five floors. Already, she could feel her eyes watering and her sinuses congesting. She didn't have much longer.

Reaching this Pokémon center's top floor, she noticed a door leading up further still, even better. Thankfully, this door was also unlocked and she burst through the door into broad daylight, finding herself on the center's roof. She slammed the door behind her just in case Drew...

She couldn't even finish the thought as the image that had been unscrupulously burned into her mind's eye appeared even behind her tightly shut eyes. She only had enough strength left to stumble off to one side of the door, her back against the cold rough brickwork. Once clear of the door, her muscles gave out on her and all she could do was huddle up into a ball as she broke down sobbing.

She had no idea how long she lay there on her side, the brisk wind biting into her cheeks and neck as she cried out her despair into the chilled sky. Nurse Joy found her there over an hour later she was told, but to May, it had felt infinitely longer.

*****

May shook her head, throwing off that sense of betrayal that still weighed heavily on her and thought a little more on the potential significance of Kelly's invitation.

"I mean…this is KELLY..." May thought aloud, as if that expression alone should effectively make the entire point.

"_Is it really worth taking such a risk...what if this IS supposed to be a date or a precursor to one? I'm afraid...afraid I might not make it through if that happened to me again..."_ she thought, sadness evident in her gaze.

"We're friends, but I've spent all of two months and some change with her. Not like Ash or Brock, who I've known for years. I don't really know Kelly as well as I thought I did. Occasionally, we've written letters back and forth, but we hadn't met face to face in YEARS before this summer." May said to herself, continuing the train of thought.

Yet May couldn't deny an underlying attraction to the young purple-haired professor. Be it personality, physique, or sense of style, Kelly was someone whom May had discovered over the past two months that she enjoyed spending time with on a regular basis. Whether this was or wasn't supposed to be a date shouldn't really factor into the situation. It could be just as simple as a young girl wanting to spend some quality time with an old friend and achieve a small bit of normalcy in her life.

May didn't know what was expected of assistant professors, but she knew Kelly deserved some time to just be herself among friends, something that she didn't seem to get nearly enough of in her position. Whether there were strings attached to this invitation or not, May knew in her heart that there really was only one way to find out for sure.

She leaned forward again and began composing her reply.

*****

Wednesday

August 13, 2008

16:08 HST

Lilycove City University Faculty Offices

Assistant professor Kelly Cruz-Marin stared blankly at her computer screen, trying valiantly to focus on preparing the syllabus for her fall semester class. Specifically, she was trying to write up the assignment sheet that was going into the syllabus for a group project that would be worth thirty percent of her students' final grade for the class.

She was, as they say, going nowhere fast.

The reason for this was because a mere twenty minutes ago, she had sent an invitational e-mail to her recent student and old friend, May Maple. And while she couldn't honestly have expected an immediate reply, it didn't make the waiting any easier.

She leaned back in her office chair and rubbed the irritation from her eyes, briefly entertaining the notion of calling it a day since she was one of very few professors that were still in the building. One of the perks about being a professor was that aside from assigned class times, her schedule was her own to make. She kept office hours when she chose, decided whether she wanted to work on something in the office or at home, and on the off-chance that she ever got assigned a midday class, could even sleep in as long as she was adequately prepared for the day's lecture!

But there were times that the job positively SUCKED, with the prime example being the recent summer internship where May had enrolled as her student, effectively reuniting them after having drifted further and further apart over the years, but forced her to keep the Petalburg native at arm's length. She couldn't praise her like she wanted to or even something as simple as talk shop with her. Sure they could meet up afterwards, which they'd done multiple times, but Kelly had always been on the lookout for anyone related to the university who might report Kelly's many meetings with May to be inappropriate.

And Kelly's simple motive for praising May where she could was entirely platonic. Kelly would have to have been blind and deaf to not hear about May and Drew's breakup on the news and Kelly, as May's friend, wanted to help rebuild the young girl's confidence and self-esteem. May was one of the rising stars of coordinating, albeit she had a pretty substantial losing streak as of late, and Kelly knew that few others could offer May the right kind of sympathy she needed. The sympathy shared by those who had gotten their hearts broken by a former lover's betrayal, if she understood May's story correctly.

Sadly, that wish couldn't be granted while Kelly was also May's professor, and so she had been forced to watch her every move around May so that nobody could claim that she was showing favoritism. Thankfully, her arms weren't totally tied and May had given her ample reason to praise her on her improvements and achievements. After all, nobody really questioned a teacher who inspired their students to do better tomorrow than they did today. It was a fine line, but Kelly walked it gladly knowing that eventually May wouldn't be her student and there would be no conflict of interests, and THEN she would be able to be more open with her affections.

But that train of thought opened a whole different can of worms for her personally. She had been down this particular road before, and it did not end well. Not only that, but Kelly had known for a while now that her romantic preferences leaned specifically towards the 'fairer sex', whereas May was a total unknown to her.

The only dating experience that Kelly knew May to have was with Drew and she believed there was no quicker way to damage her friendship with May than telling a potentially exclusive straight girl that she was both gay AND romantically interested in her. Well, that's part of where this idea for a weekend eclipse viewing had come from. For all the letters over the years and the last two months, not to mention her own budding feelings, she still knew very little about May in the romantic sense.

It had simply never come up in their letters or conversations over the past few months. Although to be fair, Kelly had to admit that shortcoming was due to the fact that she purposefully avoided that line of questioning.

"_Yeah, that would've looked REAL great. Dean of the School sees Professor Marin talking to a current student about her sexual orientation. NO, that's not a lit stick of dynamite taped to my hand at ALL!"_ Kelly thought to herself.

That was part of the reason Kelly hesitated so much this week. She composed the letter on Monday, two days ago, but chickened out for two days straight, and even today, her mouse pointer had been poised over the 'Send' key in her e-mail folder for nearly ten minutes until she had taken a deep breath, and pressed down on the left button.

For a brief moment, she almost couldn't believe that she'd done it, but the more sensible side of her simply pointed out that if she didn't send the letter today, then she would REALLY be pushing her luck as sending someone an e-mail about a weekend the DAY BEFORE said weekend would occur was just plain ludicrous and irresponsible.

Especially since she was asking someone to pedal a bike clear across the Hoenn region just to watch an eclipse that person could just as easily see in their own backyard. Kelly blanched at that realization.

"Oh my god, what if she says it's simply TOO FAR?" Kelly thought aloud, slapping her forehead in utter bewilderment as to how this had only just occurred to her. She herself was in excellent shape physically, but a bike ride to Petalburg was still a bare minimum eight-hour ride depending on the route you took and how fast a speed you maintained.

After she had composed herself and accepted that what was done was done, Kelly was forced to admit, if only to herself, that her fears and doubts about this entire endeavor could efficiently be summed up in one word, _Marina_.

"_NO. I am NOT reopening that wound. It's not worth it._"

Simply put, one of her primary fears was that her feelings for May that had been growing stronger since she showed up in her classroom nearly four months ago now, wouldn't pan out. Or that she'd screw something up, say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or most of all that May would come to the conclusion that, even if she WAS romantically interested in other girls, Kelly simply wasn't the one for her.

"_Am I being selfish by trying to pursue this?_" Kelly thought, asking another burning question that was at the center of the issue. Even in her most heartfelt dreams, where May reciprocated her feelings completely, Kelly knew that she would always fear the potential for homosexuality's negative stigma to cause May's already battered heart more emotional pain. And there would be no point in hiding a relationship since May was in the public eye much of the time. She, however, had been down this road before and also worked in an industry that was far more accepting of such a lifestyle. Such a relationship wouldn't have anywhere near the impact on her life that it would on May's.

"_If she were to become cowed by an insanely negative amount of bad press...if it got so bad she couldn't bear to set foot out the front door from all the slander and calumny...I would never forgive myself...I'd rather die than watch her life be torn apart by something I brought into it,_" Kelly thought.

As if ordained by the creators themselves, when that rather morose thought manifested in Kelly's mind, her computer chimed an alert, informing her that she had a new message. Quickly glancing at the clock, she noticed that not even an hour had passed since she sent off May's e-mail, so she was puzzled at who could possibly be e-mailing her so close to quitting time...

This, of course, made her eyes nearly bug out of her head when she noticed that the letter was indeed, from her former student, May Maple. She took a very shaky breath as she opened the message and began to read.

_Dear Kelly,_

_Your sense of timing is impeccable, I must say. Right when I've finished clearing out all my other mail, yours pops in with some awesome news and a nice offer to boot. Thanks again for taking the time to hold onto my test since I know some professors just shred them without even asking us. _

_And since you so kindly took off the professor's hat, I feel compelled to tell you that you never once made me feel ignored or acted condescending in any way towards me. It's true you acted more like a teacher than a friend, but there's a time and place for everything and girl-talk in the middle of class time wouldn't have been very useful to either of us. _

_That being said, I humbly accept your gracious offer. My family already has plans of their own and my schedule is clear for the next month as I prepare to return to coordinating full time, so there is no issue of time or prior commitments. Sure it's a long bike ride, but quite frankly I feel like I've gotten slightly out of shape while taking your class, so a long ride will do me some good. And all things being equal, Ash and Pikachu are nowhere to be found, so my bike should remain intact this time around. _

_If you could send me another e-mail with directions to your flat from the university, we can check one more box off the list. They do allow bikes in your building, right? I've checked the weather, and there shouldn't be any complications except for some scattered rain showers outside of Mauville City. _

_Since Dad is always on me about bike safety, I have to let you know which route I'm taking in case of unforeseen accidents. I'll be using Routes 102 and 103 to get over to Cycling Road 110, and from there to Mauville City. After turning west on Route 118, I'll head North on Route 119 before cutting across to Route 120 over the mountains via the Dundee Mountain Trail I learned about a year ago. That'll cut some 20 miles off my trip and hopefully speed up my arrival. Once I hit 120, it's a simple hop, skip, and a jump over to Route 121 and into the Lilycove City limits. I plan on being on the road by 8:00 am and with an hour or so for lunch, I should be there around 5:00 pm._

_I'm looking forward to our weekend, even if it's a little short-notice, and just wanted to say thanks for thinking about me and I'll be waiting for the directions to your flat. _

_See you soon,_

_May _

Kelly read and reread May's response at least four times with a smile on her face, feeling lighter than air each time she did. There was nothing weird or awkward in her response, contrary to Kelly's fears and concerns and May seemed genuinely interested for all intents and purposes. The potentially weird/awkward part of this idea was now over and done with and all that remained was in the details. She was good with details; find a need and fill it, find a problem and solve it.

Kelly immediately set to work typing up a set of directions from the university to her flat. The university was closer to Route 121, so it was easier to simply inform May how to reach the flat starting at the university entrance and ending at her building's lobby. It took her all of five minutes to confirm her directions were as accurate as she could make them and confirmed that her building did in fact allow bicycles in the building. She usually ended up taking the bus to work every day, but the 20-minute figure should be almost accurate for a bike rider.

She bundled the directions into another e-mail and sent it to May along with a short reply.

_Dear May,_

_Here are the directions to my flat, starting from the university entrance. _

_I also found out that bikes are allowed in the building._

_I'll see you on Friday afternoon and I'm looking forward to the weekend as well. _

_Sincerely,_

_Kelly_

_P.S. – I know what you mean about Ash and Pikachu! In the time I've known them, they've fried TWO of my bikes. Remind me to tell you about it when you get here! ^_^_

*****

Friday

August 15, 2008

06:30 HST

Petalburg City Gym

May sat at the dining room table after having cooked herself a medium-sized breakfast of scrambled eggs, an apple, and a multigrain bagel with strawberry cream cheese. Digging in with gusto, she was pleased at her efforts on the stove and deemed her scrambled eggs as 'better than tasty' as she took a huge slug from her glass of orange juice.

Her newest bike sat by the door, well oiled and checked out the day before after she had unpacked the last four of her boxes from her apartment in Lilycove. She was actually pretty excited about the weekend when she decided not to place too much weight on yesterday's thoughts. Above all else, she knew she just needed to be herself and have a good time. The simple truth was that if Kelly hadn't invited her to watch the eclipse with her, then she likely wouldn't have done anything more than hang around the house and nap all day after she'd gotten her boxes unpacked.

"I thought I smelled something cookin'," May turned to smile at her father as he came down the stairs, both he and Caroline had gotten in late last night and seemed barely awake even now.

"How was Date Night?" May asked her father, of course referring to the one night a week Norman and Caroline set aside for themselves now that both May and Max were only around the house infrequently at best.

"Your mother suggested a new jazz club last night over in Oledale Town and it turned out to be a real winner; great food, nice music, and a dance hour on top of it all. We're definitely going back there," her father explained, gesturing dazedly with his hands as he did so.

"That's great Dad! I'm glad you two had fun," May responded genuinely.

"So what's this I hear about you heading back to Lilycove? I don't think you forgot anything from your apartment when you were there?" Norman asked.

"You remember how my old friend Kelly turned out to be my professor, right Dad?"

"That Pokéblock girl from Lilycove with the purple hair?" Norman asked, still hardly believing someone could be an assistant professor at age 15.

"The very same. She's something of a whiz kid, and I think she already has her Master's and is working towards her PhD," May continued, scratching the back of her head uncertainly, as if she wasn't sure whether her information was current or not.

"Anyway, she invited me to come watch the eclipse with her and some friends tomorrow night since it's the first time in ten years an eclipse has been visible in Hoenn. I'm heading out in about an hour and I should be there by mid-afternoon."

"Okay then, have you let somebody know where you'll be going?"

"Yep, Mom and Kelly both have my route and I'll give you a call around 6:00 this evening to let you know I made it."

"That's still a long trek, sport, you up for it?" Norman asked, grinning slightly.

"Of course, I just gotta make sure I stretch out before I go and pace myself. It's not like it's a race and I even gave myself an hour for lunch."

"Alright then, if you've got it all worked out, then just make sure you don't do anything I wouldn't do, okay?"

"Like stop and ask directions if I get lost?" May asked smugly, a knowing grin on her face.

"I swear your mother is never gonna let me live that one down," Norman thought aloud.

"Nope," Caroline replied, seemingly materializing out of thin air, startling May slightly, but Norman was used to his wife sneaking up on him at all hours of the day.

"Alright then, Gym opens in an hour, so I'd better get busy, love you, honey," he said as he kissed Caroline, "be safe, Princess," he said, kissing the top of May's head as he passed.

"I will, Dad, love you."

"Back at ya!"

Now it was only mother and daughter in the room, and Caroline asked the same thing she did about this time every week.

"How are you doing May?" She wasted no time on pleasantries, but her voice was soft and firm. She would support her daughter as best she could after such a tragic turn of events concerning her ex-boyfriend.

"Better. It helps that I have something to do and somewhere to go; keeps my mind off less pleasant thoughts."

"Mm-hmm." Caroline agreed, idle hands never cured anything. "It was nice of Kelly to invite you over on such short notice. I had actually forgotten that there was an eclipse taking place this weekend, to be honest."

"Me too, Mom."

It pained Caroline to see her usually vibrant daughter in this state. A pale shadow of what she had been only a year ago. Times were certainly being harsh to her little girl and she helped wherever she could, but May needed to live her own life and get through her own tough times, just as she and Norman did when they were May's age. She had no doubt her daughter would pull through eventually; she just wished things would get better sooner rather than later, but then wasn't that true in all aspects of life?

"It's about time for me to get my stuff together and head out. Thanks for listening, Mom," May said as she hugged her mother tightly, glad for the simple fact that if all else in her life was going wrong, she could still turn to her family and they would help her wherever they could, no questions asked.

"Alright then, have a safe trip, May. Have fun!" Caroline called as May went back upstairs to grab her overnight bag and her toiletries, double checking to make sure she hadn't missed anything glaringly obvious, like deodorant. After making it back downstairs, she clipped her overnight bag around her shoulders and placed the toiletries bag in the front basket and walked her bike out to the front of the Petalburg City Gym, waving to her father who was checking the breaker box in the back as she went.

Once outside, she put the bike's kickstand down and then proceeded to carefully stretch out her leg muscles that hadn't seen strenuous exercise in maybe two months. After about five minutes of stretching, she popped up the kickstand, mounted up, and started the long journey back to Lilycove City.

She was in for one final surprise that morning as she rode past the front of Petalburg City's Pokémon Center, seeing two very familiar faces approaching its entrance.

"Max! Harley!" she yelled, accelerating to catch them before they entered. It proved unnecessary as they both heard her shout and stopped in the entryway to wait for her.

"What are you two doing here?" she asked, genuinely surprised to find her brother and her former rival in the Petalburg City Limits, let alone together.

"We bumped into each other in Rustboro City and figured that we'd pay Mom and Dad a visit since we were this close," Max explained.

"I showed Little Maximus a shorter way to trek through Petalburg woods to get here in a reasonable amount of time. Don't be fooled though, Maybelene, he wanted to see you just as much as his parents," Harley commented as Max just pouted slightly with a light blush on his face.

"I'm sure. Well you guys, I've got to be in Lilycove by this afternoon, so I can't stay more than a few seconds. Just wanted to say 'Hi' before I skipped town," May explained. Harley's pet name 'Maybelene' had sort of grown on her by now. It wasn't a bad name, nothing at all like what he used to call her behind her back when they'd first met. She was glad he'd chilled out significantly since she'd called him to help her little brother, who was fresh out of the closet himself. And unless her eyes deceived her, there might be something else going on here as well. She shook her head, banishing those thoughts. If it happened, then it happened; she had bigger concerns of her own to deal with. And besides, in her opinion, this new Harley that was slowly emerging from within his shell might be good for Max.

"Lilycove? Why are you heading all the way over there?" Max asked, puzzled.

"Ask Mom and Dad about it, I'm sure they'll tell you. I gotta run guys, Ciao!" May remarked as she pumped downward on one of the pedals and began moving forward again, headed out of the city, waving back to them.

It was starting to look like a really great day.

*****

Friday

August 15, 2008

17:12 HST

_Yorktown Flats_ Apartment Building – Lilycove City

Kelly glanced at the lobby's oversized clock for what seemed like the thousandth time to her since she sat down over an hour ago. She'd already thumbed through every magazine on the coffee table in front of the chair she settled into and she was quickly wondering if perhaps that clock was wrong. However, she pulled out her cell phone numerous times to check the digital clock against the one hanging across the room and to her mounting frustration, it proved accurate every time.

Kelly had taken off from work pretty early today, skipping lunch and working straight through until three o'clock or so, nibbling her brown-bag lunch as she worked throughout the day. She had arrived back, changed clothes, tidied up the guest room one last time, and then proceeded down to the lobby simply so that she would be there when May arrived. Sure she could have just buzzed her in, but she felt this would be a more personal way to start the weekend off.

However, her patience was growing thinner by the minute, as she began to wonder about all the things that could possibly go wrong between Petalburg and Lilycove, a distance of around 150 miles. It would surely test whether or not May was in shape and the longer past her 5:00pm deadline that ticked by, the more worried that Kelly was becoming. The waiting was really starting to get to her because as usual, her mind started rattling off scenarios.

Inwardly, Kelly knew that even if May were in trouble right now and called the police to get aid to her; the sun would set in about an hour, making the task of finding any missing or injured person much more difficult. Even if May stuck to her planned route, it was a lot of freaking ground to scour after sun...

Kelly's train of thought was interrupted as the most beautiful thing she could possibly have seen at that moment glided to a stop in front of the lobby doors. There was May, obviously exhausted from her long trip as she appeared to straddle the bike's frame after coming to a complete stop, catching her breath as she did so. Kelly allowed her a moment for that as she crossed the lobby to a vending machine, purchasing her guest a Gatorade before moving towards the door.

Stepping out into the pleasantly warm air and unscrewing the cap to the Gatorade, she walked up to May's side leisurely and held the bottle out as May continued to breathe deep and evenly.

"You had me a little worried there..."

"EEP!" May squeaked, almost mouse-like, obviously startled at Kelly's presence.

"You're...here," May managed between two breaths.

"Well of course, what kind of host would I be if I left you out here, WAITING, after a ride as long as yours? Duh!" Kelly remarked, as if the very concept was beyond her remarkable level of comprehension.

"Just...hah...a minute," May replied, gladly taking the Gatorade from Kelly's outstretched hand without looking at the label and sipping experimentally. She grinned when she realized that Kelly, despite not being around her for so long, still knew her favorite flavor of Gatorade was Frost Glacier Freeze.

"Like I said, you had me worried there for a bit. But I suppose fifteen minutes late isn't too bad considering the ride you just finished," Kelly continued.

"Was really...pushing it...those last fifteen miles...on 121," May replied after another, larger sip this time, her breathing beginning to slow down.

"I can only imagine, since most of it is downhill. What say you to heading upstairs to cool off?"

"Sounds great; I took it easy within the city limits to cool down a bit," May said, flexing her legs experimentally to see how wobbly they would be after her long ride. Satisfied she wouldn't fall on her face, May dismounted while Kelly kept one hand on the bike and another under her arm, prepared to catch her in the event her knees buckled.

Luckily for May, her endurance held and Kelly started escorting her to the door, one hand on the bike and the other at her side, ready to reach out and steady her friend should she need it, which didn't appear to be necessary. May's concerns about being out of shape certainly seemed trivial now, since her trip didn't seem to have had any significant effect on her at the moment.

"Elevator's towards the back on the right," Kelly mentioned as they crossed the lobby in companionable silence. May only nodded in response.

After a brief ride up to sixth floor, Kelly swung open the door to her flat and ushered May inside. The hallway they entered diverged in two directions; one going right and leading back towards what May assumed were the bedrooms while the left fork opened up into a common area that included the kitchen and a sliding glass door that opened up to a balcony that was enclosed by light mosquito netting.

The main room was tastefully decorated, if a little sparse, with the centerpiece of the room clearly being the furthest corner that was right beside the balcony. It is obviously Kelly's workspace at home, featuring a brown-stained wooden desk that housed her home computer and work accessories. There was an attached bookshelf that was about three-quarters full with all sorts of textbooks, journal articles, and scholarly references with a large comfy-looking office chair completing the ensemble. May notices that everything is clutter free and in a clearly designated space, but she expected as much having seen Kelly's room back when they first met and it had been the same way.

Also tastefully arranged around this room is a couch, a coffee table, TV, and entertainment center that doesn't appear to be used often, with a square dining room table currently set up to seat three tucked away back next to the kitchen, which is medium-sized as far as kitchens go. Kelly immediately directs May onto the couch while she opens the sliding glass door and stores May's bike along one of the railings, tucking it securely behind a patio chair and using May's attached bike lock to secure it to one of the thick iron railings.

Moments later, Kelly is back in the main room and rolls her office chair out from under the lip of her desk and twists it so that she can sit facing the room before turning to face May. She places the bag she took from the basket on May's bike on the coffee table in easy reach as May gulped down the last of her Gatorade.

"Alright then, welcome to my humble abode! Since it's been a long day for you, I'll give you the dime tour while we settle you in and then we can go from there," Kelly began, extending her hand to May so she could help her up and stave off exhaustion that much longer.

"You're now in the den; feel free to help yourself to anything in here, and if you want to use the computer, use the guest account. The password is 'friend'. Next; in the back of the den, we have our combo kitchen/dining room," Kelly gestured. May noticed that the left wall of the entryway hall doubled as one of the kitchen walls and the kitchen itself was separated from the dining room by another wall that had a big square cut into it so that a person could wash dishes and speak to guests at the same time. Turning, May picked up her toiletry bag and brought it with her.

"Now then, walking back the way we came, the entryway closet is on the right as you walked in, all heavy coats or boots go in there to avoid tracking mud in on bad days and doubles as indoor storage in a pinch. Next, as we walk down the hallway further, the first door on your left will be the guest room. First door on the right is the guest's bathroom, and the doorway at the very end of the hall opens into the master bed/bath," Kelly directed, pointing to each in turn as she opened another, wider closet just before reaching the guest bathroom.

May watched as Kelly extracted a set of towels, a hand towel, and a washcloth from the second closet before closing it again and stepping into the guest bedroom, nodding her head to indicate that May should follow. May obeyed and was surprised when she laid eyes on the guestroom, which featured a full size bed, its own closet, a Chester drawer with mirror, and a small dresser all packed efficiently into the room. She even had her own alarm clock, but she had to admit that with all the furniture in here, the room would border on feeling cramped if one were claustrophobic.

Whatever she'd been expecting when Kelly said 'guestroom' hadn't really compared to what all this amounted to, and her expression showed it. It seemed all Kelly needed was a roommate.

"Now, what are you in the mood for May? I'm off for the day, so would you like to get something to eat or clean up first?"

"Are you trying to tell me I smell?" May asked, totally deadpan with slightly narrowed eyes.

"Not from where I'm standin'."

"Says the girl from across the room," May fired back.

"The 15'x13' room with a lot of furniture arranged along the walls," Kelly replied, her grin beginning to show.

May opened her mouth to retort, but halted for a moment, pinched the bridge of her nose in thought, and then replied.

"I don't know what you might have just insinuated, but I'm going to take a shower...right after I call my parents and let them know I made it here alright."

"Oh, RIGHT. Almost forgot about that. Landline's on the desk, right side. Anything special I can fix you for dinner while you're freshening up?" Kelly asked with genuine interest.

"Surprise me," May replied with a pleasant grin on her face at how easy their conversation was for a pair of friends who hadn't seen each other in years.

"On your own head be it," Kelly said as she moved towards the kitchen to begin whatever preparations she needed for dinner.

May set all her stuff down on the bed and unpacked her 'house clothes', which was really just a pair of athletic shorts and a baggy t-shirt, since she didn't expect they would go anywhere else tonight and selected one of the towels and washcloths, setting them all aside. After that, she opened her other bag and took out everything she would need for a shower before grabbing everything together and setting it on the guest bathroom's counter on her way back into the den.

After a quick five-minute phone call to her parents, they were content that May was safe and sound in Lilycove at a number they could reach all weekend and leave a message, certain that she would receive it. With that mission accomplished, May proceeded back past Kelly, who was already chopping something up on a cutting board, to the guest bathroom, where she shucked off her clothes and started the process of figuring out how the shower worked. After all, it seemed all showers these days functioned differently.

A few minutes of toying around with the various knobs and May was standing under a spray that was as hot as she could handle, feeling the heat seep into her strained and still-burning muscles. She felt slightly dazed from the sudden increase in heat, but washed her hair and scrubbed herself down as best she could in unfamiliar surroundings. At least the water pressure was good here, halfway doing the job for her.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed, but once she'd completed her normal shower routine, she cut off the water and toweled herself dry, being sure to apply a fresh layer of deodorant as she went, and slipped into her house clothes before gathering her stuff up and opening the bathroom door. She proceeded across the hallway, unable to escape the unmistakable smell of seafood, and set everything up to dry in her room.

After more thoroughly drying and brushing her hair into a quick ponytail, she emerged from her room in sock-coated feet and headed for the kitchen, feeling infinitely more human now that all that sweat and grime was washed off.

Stopping at the entrance to the kitchen, she noticed a clock on the wall and realized she'd been in the shower for just over half an hour.

"We're almost ready. Would you look in the furthest cabinet to the right and hand me the plates please?" Kelly asked.

"Sure," May replied, finding them easily and handing them to her host.

"So what's for dinner?"

"Spicy shrimp and Bok Choy noodles," Kelly answered immediately as she went about preparing the first plate before handing it to May.

May cooed loudly as she made one of her 'cute' faces, mumbling "Noooo-dles..."

"What would you like to drink May? I've got water, orange juice, pomegranate juice, regular cola, and hot tea," Kelly inquired, her look a little sheepish at May's behavior. She really should have known better than to fix May anything with noodles unless she was prepared for this kind of reaction.

"Hot tea please," she replied.

"Kettle's already on the table; help yourself," Kelly explained, having prepared her own plate and grabbed her container of parmesan cheese out of the refrigerator before joining May at the table. It wasn't long before May broke the silence around mouthfuls of food.

"So I was thinking on my way over here today, what exactly does being an assistant professor entail at LCU? I've always wondered what the teacher's side of things is..." May trailed off, chomping down on another bite of food.

"Oh let me tell you, it ain't nearly what I thought it would be when I was still a student. The main reason being..."

And just like that, the gap between the two estranged friends began to close. Kelly spoke about funny stories that had occurred during her Bachelor's education, how her parents' shop was doing, and some of the escapades involving her own students now that she was a teacher herself.

May countered with a bonanza of tales from her travels far and wide in the company of her friends. From their multiple dealings with Team Rocket, to her coordinating rivals, to recent developments within her own family that she hadn't had time or convenience to convey while they were professor and student. After all, most college students don't tell their professor about their younger brother coming out of the closet over a cup of coffee; a situation like that was normally only revealed to close friends who were trusted implicitly.

As the night progressed, May came to the startling realization that she had missed this kind of thing very much; close girl-talk moments that had occurred all too infrequently while she'd been traveling with Ash as well as her other friends and later on her own while in Johto. It had been ages since she sat down to talk with a girl her own age, let alone one as close to her as Kelly was.

Kelly was careful to note May's body language and speaking mannerisms. They gave her clues as to what was going through the older coordinator's mind and it helped her reconnect with May after so many years apart. One thing was for certain, they had a lot of catching up to do given all they'd been through separately in only a few short years. What the future held for each of them, she didn't know, but if their lives up until that point were any indication of things to come, then maybe there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

The two young friends talked well into the night, May's exhaustion all but forgotten in the glow of companionship that they were both rediscovering bit by bit. It wasn't until midnight that the two reunited friends could bring themselves to end their conversation, even if it was to get some well-needed rest less than twenty feet from each other.


	2. Chapter 2

**Act Two**

*****

Saturday

August 16, 2008

08:50 HST

_Yorktown Flats;_ Apartment 635 – Lilycove City

Kelly Cruz-Marin stirred from her deep sleep, spurred awake by both her internal clock and the growing amount of sunlight in her window. Even though her windows all faced north, it was enough to awaken her. After rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she noted the list she had left on her bedside table, which reminded her of the plans that still needed to be finalized with the people who would be coming to watch the eclipse with them.

Getting up and dressing, Kelly knew it was going to be an interesting day, to say the least.

*****

Saturday

August 16, 2008

12:45 HST

_Yorktown Flats;_ Apartment 635 – Lilycove City

May slowly returned to consciousness in a blissfully slow manner, knowing only that she was pleasantly warm and felt rested enough to begin functioning again. Feeling slightly tense, she moved to stretch out the kinks in her muscles only for them to cry out in extreme protest by sending the appropriate nerve signals for PAIN racing to her brain.

"UGH!" May groaned quietly, obviously getting the message.

Her arms and torso felt lax, like they were made of wet paper rather than flesh and bone. They burned uncomfortably, but it was nothing she'd never felt before after a basic workout. It was her legs and feet that were truly painful for her, feeling like she'd dipped them in an acid bath, not to mention that every time she flexed one of them to work the stiffness out they contracted sharply in a remarkable resemblance of 'Crabber's Claw', taking several seconds to a few minutes for them to relax again.

"Oh MAN...and I've gotta ride back home TOMORROW..." May thought aloud, doubt about her decision to join Kelly this weekend briefly entering her mind.

"_No, it's not that I don't FEEL like being here, it's that I don't want to think about the long ride back home when my legs feel like I just shoved them through a meat grinder_," May thought to herself as she did her best to stretch muscles themselves with as little pain as possible, which was proving to be something along the lines of an impossibility.

Her morning had gone from near-blissful warmth to unending, muscular agony in the span of a few heartbeats. While she could honestly say that muscle aches relating to rigorous exercise weren't something she was a stranger to, she had to admit that this was perhaps the single worst case of cramps that she'd ever endured. She really should have broken up the trek to Lilycove in two separate legs and left on Thursday rather than wait until Friday morning and do it all at once.

However, as a person used to rigorous exercise in the past, May also knew that the only way to deal with a sore muscle was to work the stiffness out of it and get it used to strenuous exercise once more.

Knowing that, May painfully sat up in bed, thanking whatever higher powers that were listening that only her legs had been affected, and began to systematically limber herself up again after her long and restful sleep by moving around the room. Catching a glance at her alarm clock on the dresser, she was only slightly surprised that it was nearing one o'clock in the afternoon. After all, she'd been up most of yesterday and had one hum-dinger of a bike ride as well.

It took her nearly twenty minutes before she felt she could function regularly around the house without Kelly noticing too much. Goodness knows that Kelly would fret over her if she saw her wincing every other second and the last thing she wanted to do was make Kelly feel bad for inviting her to this event when she hadn't had to in the first place.

Stepping out of the room, May made every attempt to not appear as if she had just developed an advanced case of Parkinson's disease, what with how jerky she felt.

Her attempt at deceiving Kelly lasted all of eighteen seconds.

Kelly had been tending to a pot of something that smelled delicious when she glanced up and spent about a total of three seconds observing her friend.

"You're pretty tense, May," making it a statement, not a question. Then, as May predicted, the accompanying look of guilt made its way onto Kelly's face.

"Guess that happens when you ride 150 miles in one day on a bike."

"It's kind of my own fault; I should have left on Thursday and stopped over in Mauville, Kelly. I made the mistake of thinking I could ride it all in one go, so don't beat yourself up over it. In fact that's probably what I'll do on the way home," May replied, doing her best to alleviate her friend's feelings as she sat down on the couch stiffly.

"And you're right, my feet are killing me. Do you have any Epsom salts? I can make a quick soak if you've got a dishpan I could borrow for a bit?" May trailed off, a little embarrassed to be asking for a little much, in her opinion.

"Are you SERIOUS, May?! Epsom's about as effective as aspirin for a migraine headache! Sit down on the couch and I'll take care of it," Kelly replied, speaking a tone that was halfway between 'professor mode' and 'good friends only'.

May blushed slightly, not quite sure what to expect as Kelly brought her a bowl of what she guessed was stew after taking the pot off the heat and covering it once she'd ladled some of it into a bowl for May. Handing it to her guest on a hot-mat with a can of cola, Kelly sat down on the carpeted floor and proceeded to remove May's socks before she expertly set about massaging away the tension in May's feet, one at a time.

May's mouth dried up almost immediately as relief began blossoming in her right foot under Kelly's warm hands. Slightly embarrassed at the situation, May concentrated on the lunch in front of her in an attempt to get the image of Kelly's head between her knees out of her visual field.

"So, what do you call this...menu item?" May asked, uncertainly stammering while trying to avoid insulting Kelly's food.

"Mushroom and Chicken Stew," Kelly answered as if what she was doing were the most natural thing in the world.

May cautiously blew on a spoonful of the savory-smelling stew to cool it before cautiously allowing it into her mouth. She wasn't one much for stews, but Kelly's was surprisingly flavorful and May could honestly say that she was mildly impressed.

"You sure have a lot of recipes for someone who seems to work all the time," May continued.

"What can I say? Gal's gotta eat and I enjoy watching the Food Network Channel."

May giggled at that; trust Kelly to find a simple solution to the common problem experienced by most women, not knowing how to cook.

"You're not ticklish down here, are you?" Kelly asked, her expression perfectly innocent, although May was certain that she noticed a well-hidden devious streak in her friend's eyes as she switched to her left foot.

"No, thank goodness. I enjoy foot massages, but it's hard as hell to get one without paying a professional for one in Petalburg."

"_Gift idea!"_ Kelly thought to herself, imagining May's face on her next birthday after receiving a gift certificate for a day at the spa.

"So...what made you get up so early? It's Saturday for crying out loud!"

"My internal clock's to blame for that. Ever since I started at LCU, I find that I can't sleep past seven or eight in the morning."

"Aren't there late classes you can teach?" May asked between bites.

"There are, but our class times are assigned, so I have no control over it. Besides, I can appreciate getting up early, makes me more productive with my day. Good ol' Franklin said it best; **'Early to bed, early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy, and****wise'**!" Kelly quoted with a smile as she switched back to May's right foot.

May could easily see herself getting used to this, imagining for a moment coming home on a daily basis to a foot massage, good food, and even better company. Yeah, being Kelly's roommate wouldn't be bad at all, if she were given the opportunity.

"Keep this up, and you'll spoil me rotten, Kelly Cruz-Marin," May remarked, returning the smile.

"Eh, I figure if I spoil you now, you'll return the favor at some point, HINT HINT!" Kelly said, stage-whispering while turning her head to the side slightly with a playful grin on her face.

"Last time this happened to me, someone was trying to get in my pants," May replied, her grin just as playful as she tried to see how far she could push this playful side of Kelly.

Kelly sputtered a few times as she blushed hotly, yet still continued the massage.

"D-D-Don't be silly!" Unable to look her friend in the eye for a moment, Kelly felt a sense of dread bloom in her gut; certainly she wasn't being _THAT_ obvious...was she?!

May giggled again, almost enjoying seeing Kelly become the embarrassed one for a change.

"You're right, that was a little uncalled for, but you should have SEEN the look on your face!" May replied, still giggling as Kelly switched back to her left foot.

Kelly breathed an internal sigh of relief. May had only been joking. Kelly just hoped May had been as equally joking about someone trying to get in her pants via foot massage.

"_She made that part up, right?"_

"So what time is this whole thing getting kicked off?" May asked, interrupting Kelly's thoughts as she finished up her bowl of stew.

Glad for the change in topic, Kelly launched into her plan for the evening.

"Due to the planet's rotation, the eclipse itself won't be visible until Moonset, which falls around four or later on Sunday morning. That being the case, Frank and Cass decided to make it an all-night gathering. Leo just happened to sweeten the deal when he managed to acquire a permit for us to have a bonfire as well," Kelly began.

"Wait a tic, how many people are coming with us?!" May asked, startled that Kelly had just easily thrown out names and mentioned a bonfire, which usually meant having LOTS of people around.

"There're ten of us in all; I just finalized the guest list this morning with Frank."

"So who's all coming?" May inquired, genuinely curious as to whom else Kelly might've invited.

"I mentioned Frank and Cass Hogan, a married couple whom I work with at LCU. Those two went out of their way to welcome me during my first semester here as a professor when everyone else just sorta left me hanging. Frank's a Phys-Ed instructor who teaches the Martial Arts program at the university and Cassandra has a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. Cass teaches the school's Automotive Racing and Automotive Repair courses since she started working as a mechanic when she was our age," Kelly continued.

"Leo's a trip; he's originally an orphan, never met his real parents, but he was raised by Les and Sue Stroud."

"Wait a second...THE Les Stroud, the filmmaker from Canada?" May asked.

"The very same; attached to his hip almost, is Sara Smalls. She's been his girlfriend for YEARS and they're essentially ENGAGED," Kelly explained, making quotation mark gestures with her hands for a brief moment before switching to May's right foot and continuing.

"Anyway, Leo owns his own film company and Sara's one of his photographers. They've been on every major continent except for Antarctica and run a small side-business with his dad as Wilderness Guides for high-end clientele. Leo SAYS he knows Canada like the back of his own hand and I for one believe him when he says it."

"Sara's a total tomboy and cusses like it's going out of style. But I have to admit she's a great gal once you get to know her. I met her through Leo and I met Leo while I was working on my Master's Degree where he served as an outdoor consultant to one of my professors at the time. I got along well with both of them and we all stayed in touch over the past couple of years."

"You sure know some...interesting people," May replied, relaxing into the couch as Kelly continued to work her magic.

"Tell me about it. Next on the list are Liza and Tate Cernan from..."

"From the Mossdeep City Gym! I remember those two! It's been a long time since I passed through their neck of the woods, WAY back when I was still traveling with Ash and Brock!" May smiled at the thought of seeing the twins again.

"Yep, they heard through the grapevine that I was putting together a party for Frank and Cass's twentieth anniversary, and since it's an eclipse party, they wanted to know if they could bring a telescope and tag along," Kelly said.

"Wow, they're only five years away from their Silver, that's hard to find in this day and age," May noted.

Kelly simply nodded as she switched feet again.

"And the last two are Nicole Carson and Katie Wheeler. Nicole's been my intern for about five months now and I figured she deserved a break. Katie was in my advanced class this past spring and she hung out a lot with Nicole, so she invited Katie along for one last weekend of fun before the fall semester starts," Kelly finished, taking a break as her hands were starting to burn with exertion.

May sighed gratefully as she experimentally flexed her feet a few times.

"I've met both of them. Do Nicole and her sisters still run their berry farm with all those Lotad?" May asked, to which Kelly nodded in reply.

"And what Hoenn-native trainer or coordinator hasn't met Katie Wheeler before?" Kelly asked, laying on the sarcasm with regards to mentioning the 'Pride of Lilycove City'.

"Nice to know there'll be some familiar faces there with us tonight," May said, feeling much more at ease now. She'd been anxious about the prospect of spending a large amount of time with Kelly one-on-one given her original thoughts about this weekend, but it seemed that would not be an issue whatsoever.

"Alright then, would you mind if I ate before we continued with the massage?" Kelly asked.

"By all means, it's your house," came May's immediate reply.

"But you're the guest this weekend and that's the important part," Kelly reminded her friend as she got up and fixed her own bowl of stew, preparing another for May as well, knowing her friend's appetite would be returning shortly.

*****

Saturday

August 16, 2008

17:23 HST

_Yorktown Flats_; Lobby – Lilycove City

"Yeah...okay, gotcha. See you in a few minutes," Kelly replied as she closed her cell phone and glanced over at May, who was sitting opposite her in the very same chair Kelly sat in waiting for May to arrive yesterday.

"They should be pulling up in a few minutes. Katie was running a little behind," Kelly explained to May, who had wondered what was holding up Leo and Sara, who had graciously agreed to drive for the five of them so that they only needed to take two cars instead of three.

The two lounged in comfortable silence, neither really feeling the need to fill the air between them since Kelly had told May quite a bit regarding the company she would be keeping tonight. The only thing that remained was for her to actually meet them face to face. Maybe then the slight tension that had settled into May's gut would abide once the party actually got underway.

True to Kelly's words, not four minutes later, a modified Toyota 4Runner pulled up outside of the lobby's doors, pulling a small trailer behind it loaded with a large amount of firewood. After putting on the hazard lights, a young man stepped out from the driver's seat and headed towards the door, removing his sunglasses on the way.

May was a little taken aback by the guy's rugged handsomeness that reminded her of pictures she'd seen of her dad when he'd still been a trainer on the Hoenn circuit, traveling between cities. He stood just a touch under six feet tall with short, close cropped black hair and gray eyes that seemed to have just the slightest tint of blue. He wore a simple pair of blue jeans, a long-sleeve t-shirt, a medium-weight jacket to guard against the potentially cold night, with a sturdy pair of boots to round out the ensemble.

"Kelly! It's been too long!" Leo began with a smile on his face, enveloping Kelly in a one-armed hug.

"Ain't that the truth! You never write, you never call..." Kelly trailed off, obviously teasing Leo.

"Well, I'm a busy man, same as you, professor; You can't expect me to fly all the way over here just to say 'hello' anymore than I can expect you to cancel a full week's classes just to play hooky," Leo replied easily, turning his gaze on Kelly's guest.

"And you must be May Maple. Kelly's told me about you. Welcome to our humble little get-together. Frank and Cass are going to meet us over at the park with Liza, Tate, and Nicole, so let's get shakin'! We're burnin' sunshine here!" Leo continued as he shook May's proffered hand and began leading her back towards the door, Kelly following suit after grabbing a paper grocery bag from beside her chair.

"AH! You brought the goods, nice one Kelly. Don't tell Sara though, she'll probably eat half of everything you've got in there if it's within her reach, so just head around to the back and stick that in the Gearbox," Leo said.

"Sure thing, wouldn't want Sara to go all 'Grumpig' on us, now would we?" Kelly replied, grinning as she did so.

As Leo nodded in reply, he opened the rear driver's side door for May while Kelly opened the rear door of the vehicle. Just as Kelly had said, there sat the Pride of Lilycove City, Katie Wheeler. May wasn't surprised to see her wearing an outfit that greatly resembled the one she'd seen her wear during the Ever Grande Conference, if only in another color, this time with a sapphire blue shirt and a pair of solid black blue jeans.

"Oh, these two told me that Kelly was bringing a friend! I'm Katie Wheeler, nice to meet you!" The older trainer began. May kindly returned the handshake as she climbed into the 4Runner's middle seat and began the task of finding out exactly which buckle went with her lap belt.

"I doubt you'd remember, but we met once, years ago, at the Ever Grande Conference..." May began with Katie almost immediately holding up her hand as her brow furrowed.

"Yeah, I thought you looked somewhat familiar...wait a minute, you were in one of the front rows about four or five years back, cheering for some guy from...Pallet Town...?" Katie asked, somewhat uncertainly.

"Wow! You have a good memory for people if you can remember someone years later who barely said a word to you when they met you." May replied, slightly stunned at Katie's ability to recall such information.

"Ready to roll!" Kelly said as she buckled herself into the 4Runner behind Leo's seat as Leo was climbing in himself after having closed Kelly's door.

Suddenly another female face appeared between the two front seats and May was, for the second time that evening, faced with someone she'd never met before.

"Sara Smalls, nice to meet you, May Maple. Kelly's talked about you ever since she saw you were enrolled in her class this past summer. It's great to finally have a face to put with the name," the young woman said as she smiled genuinely and May found herself almost instantly taking a liking to Sara's demeanor as the older woman turned back around to buckle her seat belt.

"And my name's Leo Stroud, May, I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier," Leo said, briefly turning to meet her eyes. "Alright then, ladies, let's get this show on the road," Leo continued as he turned off the 4Runner's hazard lights and put the car into gear after fastening his own seatbelt.

"So how far away is this park?" May asked, wondering how long she'd have to be slightly smushed between one of her oldest friends and someone she barely knew.

"Somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, May; since Frank and Cass wanted to be able to see the stars as well, we had to pick a spot that's a fair distance outside the city limits so that all the lights don't spoil the view," Leo explained.

"Oh, okay," May replied, keeping her voice somewhat chipper so that she wouldn't ruin anyone's attitude before the night had even begun, although she'd certainly have to pull Kelly aside during the party and politely ask if they could switch places on the way home.

"So why were you running late, Katie? That isn't like you considering your attendance record during my advanced class this past spring," Kelly inquired.

"Well, uh...the story behind that, er...it really wasn't...something that I meant to..." Katie babbled slightly as she nervously scratched her head as a few drops of sweat began forming on her forehead.

"What she means to say is that she got caught up in a practice match against some guy named Clark and totally forgot about the time we were picking her up until Leo stomped into the arena and nearly dragged her out by her hair," Sara voiced from the front of the vehicle, a grin plainly visible on her face from Kelly's angle of view.

"I was _getting_ to that part..." Katie mumbled forcefully enough for everyone in the car to make out what she'd said.

Sara's only response was to snort loudly and offer up her own rebuttal, "Well then either my ears are going bad or my watch is skint-broke, cuz all I'm hearin' is a bunch'a dead air comin' from you."

"Come on, I'm sure everyone here's been guilty of that little SNAFU at least once, so get off my back Smalls unless you're saying that **you've** never been late for anything before?" Katie replied.

"Alright, fair enough, I'll stop giving you grief about it," Sara said.

Katie let a small sigh of relief escape her.

"But you have to admit, the look on your face WAS priceless!" Sara continued, grinning as Katie let out a low rumbling grown of mild frustration.

"Okay Sara, this is supposed to be a 20th Anniversary party for Frank and Cass, let's not spoil the mood before we're even there," Kelly replied diplomatically.

"She's right Sara, tonight is about celebrating two people who've managed to do something pretty rare in today's world, so it's best just to drop the subject, okay?" Leo intervened. Even though he knew it probably wasn't necessary given that Kelly handled these kinds of situations amongst her students pretty well, but with Sara, there was always the off-chance that she'd get riled up and not think her actions through before she acted, which sometimes inadvertently hurt people even though that wasn't Sara's intention.

Sara took their words to heart and laid off on her teasing, though that left a somewhat uncomfortable silence. Seeing as how she'd been the one who caused it to start, Sara found it only appropriate that she be the one who ended it.

"So May, I've heard Kelly talk about you, but I'm wondering what your family is like...you got any brothers or sisters?" Sara asked.

"Yes; one brother, younger than me by three years," May answered.

"And your parents? What do they do for a living?" Sara continued.

"My dad's the gym leader of Petalburg City," May replied, obviously proud to be her father's daughter, "and my mother's a stay-at-home Mom, though she does help out quite a bit with helping keep the books straight at the gym so my dad doesn't have to worry about it. My brother, Max, is a trainer and when I left on Friday morning, he was just getting into Petalburg to pay our parents a visit with a friend of his. Other than that, my life's pretty normal."

"Normal, May? Come ON, you've got so many stories about when you were traveling with Ash that it's not even funny! Heck, you've SEEN Pokémon that I've only read about before in books! You call that normal?!" Kelly asked, her voice an octave higher than it normally was.

"Eh..." was the most intelligent reply that May could come up with.

"Is that true May? You've seen legendary Pokémon?" Sara asked with genuine curiosity.

"Yeah, I've seen a few. Some of the more well-known ones include Rayquaza, Deoxys, Jiraichi, and Manaphy," May explained.

"Wow, that's pretty impressive. I've been on six continents at different times throughout the calendar year and I can honestly say I haven't even see half as many as you May," Leo commented.

"Really? Which continent have you not been on?" Katie asked, diverting attention away from May, who was mildly thankful for the distraction since many of her experiences had landed her in more binds than she cared to think about, mainly because poachers and organized criminal networks believed that if she'd encountered such Pokémon once, that she knew how to track them down again and lead them to their quarry.

"You get three guesses and the first two don't count," Sara mentioned, as if the answer would seem obvious given Leo's reputation in his social circle.

"Antarctica," Kelly said, already knowing the answer.

"That's right, what gave it away professor?" Sara asked.

"Well, I know that Leo does mostly documentary film work about wildlife and ecosystem imbalances, so knowing that, it seemed that Antarctica has the fewest natural inhabitants, not to mention environmental conditions that don't exactly aid in filming," Kelly answered.

"Wow, you sure know a lot, Kelly. How do you find time to learn about all this different stuff?" May asked.

"I watch a lot of Leo's programs to be honest. He's a hell of a filmmaker and teacher when he wants to be. By the way, Leo, do you think you'll ever get around to visiting Antarctica?" Kelly asked.

"Oh certainly, I'm in the middle of negotiations with another company to help sponsor a trip down there. We tracked a tagged Empoleon's migratory route for a full year and it seems that those guys are tough enough to withstand the Arctic extremes. I'm hoping to follow his trail all the way to their summer nesting grounds off Antarctica's Western-most coastline," Leo continued.

"So if that's your next big trip, what would you say is your favorite place in the world thus far?" Katie asked, an interested expression on her face.

Leo looked thoughtful for a moment before answering, "Definitely Canada if I had to pick one area of the world. Dad used to take all of us out into the wild for days at a time, and almost never in the same spot twice. Personally, I think it's one of the most beautiful places left in the world today."

"I gotta agree with Leo on this one, there's always something new to photograph whenever work takes any of us in that direction. Canada's one of the few places in the world where I'm NEVER bored," Sara offered.

"I've never been to Canada, but I gotta say my favorite spot in the world that I have been to would be the Orange Islands. It just seemed more adventurous getting around the archipelago on my Lapras than it was in any other region since you had to spend a few days at sea every time you wanted to move on to another island or Gym," Katie said.

"I guess I can see some of the reasoning behind that, seeing as how there's more potential for things to go wrong. Any professional trainer would gladly accept that kind of challenge I think as it's bound to improve the bond with your Pokémon as well as hone a person's navigational skills," Kelly said.

May had the good grace to nervously scratch her head and allow a sheepish look to make its way onto her face as she remembered the countless times she'd gotten lost after parting ways with her younger brother, the resident whiz-kid of the PokéNav, who always knew which way to go as long as the PokéNav could get a signal anyway.

The rest of the car ride was spent with everyone swapping stories, learning about each other, and trading jokes back and forth. May might have been initially opposed to being smushed between two other people, but that feeling faded the more the group grew familiar with each other. In all honestly, she was almost sad when they arrived at the Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds, where she suspected that everyone would likely not remain in such close proximity to each other once the party got underway.

*****

Saturday

August 16, 2008

18:28 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

Leo deftly maneuvered their vehicle and the trailer it was hauling through the many dirt roads until they emerged in a large, hilly meadow that had a few covered picnic shelters dotting across its landscape. Leo proceeded towards the one located furthest from where they'd emerged from the trees, with May noticing that it seemed like the only one that came equipped with a large pre-dug fire ring.

Another thing she noticed was that there was currently no other vehicles parked near the shelter that they were headed to and upon pulling up near the shelter and repositioning the trailer a bit, Leo cut the engine and climbed out of the vehicle with all the others following suit.

Without even blinking, Leo took out four custom Poké Balls that were shaded cobalt blue instead of the usual red and released all of his Pokémon for some exercise. Materializing from within their storage containers appeared a Charizard, a Sceptile, an Embreon, and a Glaceon.

"Alright, Team! This may be a party for Frank and Cass, but feel free to stretch your legs and enjoy yourselves tonight! We'll take care of the setup, so you guys can just take the night off! Dinner should be ready before you know it," Leo explained to his team.

Sara soon followed suit with three of her own Pokémon; an Ampharos, a Pidgeot, and a Floatzel. "You heard him gang! Hang ten, chill out, and all that jazz. Play nice and enjoy your time off."

The other trainers in the car followed suit and soon May's Blaziken, Blastoise, Glaceon, Beautifly, Venusaur, and Snorlax were joined by Kelly's Grumpig and Katie's Walrein, Venomoth, Golduck, Dugtrio, Misdreavus, and Scizor. All of the Pokémon present seemed to come to the consensus that it would be best to hang out at the edge of the tree-line some thirty feet beyond the shelter while their trainers got things organized. Leo then turned to address his human companions.

"Welcome to Camp Hogan, ladies; named so for the night in honor of our esteemed guests, who have yet to arrive. We now have roughly thirty minutes to spritz this place up and make it party-worthy, so let's get started. Sara, would you mind organizing the food, setting up some of the tables, and get the charcoal started heating?" Leo asked.

"Hell yeah! You know I never turn down a good grill-out!" Sara answered as she headed towards the back of the 4Runner, snaring Kelly along the way. Leo merely chuckled and moved back to the trailer, unhitching the firewood bundles and kindling that he'd need to get the bonfire going.

"Sorry, May, but I'm gonna borrow your professor here until the party starts, is that alright?" The older woman asked.

"Yeah, no sweat. Is there anything I can do to help?" May countered as Sara opened the rear door of the 4Runner. May's eyes widened significantly as she suddenly came to realize exactly why Leo had called the back storage area of his 4Runner "the Gearbox". Namely because over half of the space there was taken up by various pieces of survival gear, tool sets, and emergency rations. May shook her head, quickly coming out of her stupor.

"As a matter of fact, there is," Sara began, pulling out a long white tube that May figured was a sign of some kind. "You and Katie over there can find a place to hang this banner we made up so that Frank and Cass will see it and know that this is their special night. Hop to it you two, chop, chop!" Sara said as she handed the banner over to Katie while giving May a coil of nylon rope that appeared to be some forty feet in length.

Unbeknownst to Sara, Kelly had successfully snuck her paper grocery bag out from under her nose during the distraction that May had unwittingly provided for her and moved to stash it in the seat Sara had vacated not five minutes ago as the young woman began unloading unfolding camp chairs, complete with foot rests, a few lanterns, and a few boxes of napkins and utensils.

By the time Kelly had made her way back to the rear of the 4Runner, Sara loaded her up with the unpacked party essentials before grabbing one of the lanterns and a fifty pound bag of charcoal herself and following Kelly. The two of them settled their burdens down near the park's solid steel charcoal grills and returned to the 4Runner for another load.

As May and Katie worked with the rope to hang the banner, Sara and Kelly unloaded the gear on top of the 4Runner's roof, held in place by nylon rope tied to the 4Runner's Ski-rack. After setting up a few of the tables and chairs, Sara and Kelly returned to unload the extra-large, economy-size white cooler that undoubtedly held their food for the evening. Idly, Kelly noticed a sticker on the side advertising the fact that this cooler could keep ice inside of it for five straight days in 90°F heat and wondered how much it would cost for her to find a cooler like this one for the next time she had to defrost her freezer.

Heaving and hoeing all the way, the two women lifted the heavy chest over near the grills and set it down as carefully as possible. Between them, both Sara and Kelly were short of breath and sat down on the sturdy cooler for a moment before Sara set to work on preheating the charcoal as May and Katie came over to see how things were progressing.

"We got the banner hung, how about you two?" Katie asked as Kelly caught her breath.

"As far as we can tell, all the heavy stuff's done. All that's left is...setting up the other tables and what's left of the chairs," Kelly replied as she glanced back towards the shelter's rafters and the sign that now hung there.

_**Congratulations Frank & Cass Hogan! 20 Years and Still Going Strong!**_

Kelly smiled at the gesture for her two newest friends, remembering that it had originally been Nicole's idea for Frank and Cass's anniversary to take advantage of the fact that there was an eclipse on the same night.

Glancing back towards the fire ring, Kelly noticed that Leo had all but finished constructing a crude bonfire wood structure and was currently setting a two-gallon can of kerosene next to the edge of the fire ring so that it would easier to light later in the growing darkness.

As Leo headed back towards the shelter, Sara had just finished lighting up the charcoal to let it come to cooking temperature and the other three ladies had just finished setting up the last few chairs alongside the tables.

"So we all set to go?" Leo asked.

"Ready as we're gonna get, all we need now is for the others to show up," Katie replied.

"And not a moment too soon," Leo said, pointing towards an Audi A4 that was making its way towards their shelter. "7:00 PM, right on the tick," Leo thought aloud.

Another minute or so later, the Audi came to a stop near Leo's 4Runner and the five remaining guests disembarked from the vehicle. Seeing all the other Pokémon out and about, it didn't take Liza and Tate long to release their Pokémon and allow Lunatone and Solrock to mingle amongst all the other Pokémon.

May practically ran over to greet her old friends Nicole, Liza, and Tate, whom she hadn't seen for just as long as she hadn't seen Kelly before walking into her classroom months ago.

"Oh, it's so great to see you again Nicole!" May all but cheered.

"Ditto, May, I couldn't believe my ears when Kelly told me you'd be coming! I thought for sure you'd be in a contest somewhere else or taking it easy after summer school. What made you change your mind?" Nicole asked.

"Well, you could say that Kelly talked me into it. I was already settled back in at home from summer school and I hadn't planned on being in any contests for at least a few more months, so I guess it was a combination of Kelly's invitation and me simply not having anything better to do that cinched the deal," May explained.

"Sounds like you and I have hit opposite sides of the spectrum on this one. Kelly practically had to twist my arm to get me out of the lab AND the greenhouse, but now that I'm here, I'm glad that she did," Nicole continued.

"Why do you say that?" May asked.

"Because I was in a similar situation as you May. I had nothing better to do tonight, except for work. My sisters are both currently out of town on business of their own and all I had to look forward to otherwise was some leftover tofu stir-fry and watching plants grow," Nicole said.

"Somehow she always gets her way, doesn't she?" May asked, grinning as she did so.

"Ain't that the truth? Nobody else could have possibly gotten me away from the lab table, I'll have you know."

"Yeah, but then she's also your professor, so you kinda have to listen to her since she DOES have the power to fail you, right?" May asked.

"Hmm...I guess so, but Kelly's never been one to fail someone just because they don't follow directions. Sure she yells, sure she makes threats, but I wouldn't trade her for any other professor in the region," Nicole continued.

"So what else is new in your corner of the world?" May inquired.

"Well, let me tell you about my latest and greatest project! I'm trying to interbreed the Enigma berry plant with the Lum berry plant to produce a 'Super Berry' producing plant. If I can find a way to combine them using..." Nicole continued to explain her theories to a fascinated May, who could only imagine what such a berry would be capable of doing if a Pokémon ate them regularly.

Meanwhile, not that far away, Kelly was receiving her own special reunion with Tate and Liza Cernan, a pair to which she owed a lot of thanks. As she chatted with them both and got caught up on what was happening around Mossdeep Island, she began to reminisce on how exactly these two had ended up in their company this evening.

Many weeks ago, when she'd still been planning the basis for Frank and Cass's anniversary party, she'd discovered that she'd lost a potentially vital file off of her hard drive during a power surge. Luckily, it was a file she'd e-mailed to herself from the Mossdeep City Observatory Labs and she'd called the Cernans, hoping against hope that they hadn't deleted the file yet.

As it turned out, Tate had answered the phone and listened to her predicament and hastily retrieved the file from the labs' collective recycling bin, only a few days before the file was scheduled to be deleted. Upon having Tate e-mail it to her again, he'd brought up the topic of the upcoming eclipse and Kelly could easily remember how their conversation had gone from there...

_"Funny you should ask! I've put together a party to celebrate a 20th Wedding Anniversary for some colleagues of mine!"_

"_Woh, REALLY?! Mind if Liza and I tag along with a telescope, show you all the moonscapes?"_

"_Sounds like a winner to me Tate! Break out the portable 'scope and we'll bring the bonfire stuff."_

And that had been how Liza and Tate Cernan had found themselves invited to Frank and Cass's 20th Anniversary party; which suited Tate just fine as he couldn't stop the butterflies from hovering around in his stomach nor stop the sense of giddiness that he felt around the LCU professor, formerly graduate student that he'd come to care for.

The only hiccup in the works right now was Liza, so to speak. For a while there when Kelly had practically been visiting the observatory every other day for research purposes, Tate spent more and more time with her, truly interested in her thesis, since it had to do with space-faring Pokémon and how their physiology reacted to certain berry concoctions since they weren't from Earth originally.

Liza had, dare he even think, grown jealous of how her twin's time was being spent more and more frequently alongside the young, but talented Lilycove native. Some arguments occasionally broke out with Liza accusing him of neglecting his duties as a Gym Leader and by extension, his duties as a member of the Cernan family. It had all culminated into Liza teasing him in front of their parents, claiming that he shouldn't date older women.

Their parents' response had shocked them both into silence.

_"Well, it's not like Kelly's THAT much older than him. A few months, sure, but that shouldn't discourage him from pursuing it if he feels that strongly about it."_

Liza had found out the hard way that day that the joke was on her.

Since that day however, Liza had made great strides in reigning in her accusations of him neglecting his responsibilities and since Kelly finished her thesis shortly afterwards, the twins had fallen back into their usual familiar pattern.

Then Kelly had called them up again, looking for a lost computer file, and Tate saw his chance when she mentioned a party she was throwing for some of her colleagues. He'd jumped at the chance to be near Kelly again and he didn't regret it one bit. The only saving grace for Tate at this point would be that Kelly still didn't know how he felt about her, which would have made things very awkward between them, or so he thought.

"So, the situation at home is pretty much the same as when I left?" Kelly asked.

"More or less, so we can't really complain. How's your job at LCU going?" Tate responded with a question of his own.

"It's tough, but very rewarding. I can't imagine doing anything other than teaching like this. I just get such a rush whenever a student finally GETS something that's been stumping them for DAYS. It feels great knowing that you had a hand in that realization; there's only a few things that feel quite like it," Kelly explained.

"That's good to know. Are you thinking about lecturing at any other universities or just stick to LCU?" Liza asked.

"Actually, I just got a nice offer from the Rustboro Academy, all the way on the region's west coast, and I've taken it, so I'll be doing double duty for the next three years with Rustboro classes from Monday to Friday and Lilycove courses over the weekends."

"Wow, that's a lot of work. I'd almost call you a glutton for punishment if I didn't already know you so well," Liza replied, stunned beyond words at how someone would willingly sign up for a three-year stint of seven-day workweeks. Liza may not have liked Kelly very much for stealing her brother's attention, but she could certainly respect a person with the shear amount of drive that Kelly seemed to have in abundance.

"I was just as surprised when the opportunity came up. I remember publishing my first three research articles concerning nutritional Pokémon supplements as a LCU professor and the next thing I knew, I had gotten no less than four calls from three different professors over at Rustboro Academy who wanted to peer-review my studies and another from the Chairmen of the Board of Trustees asking me if there was any way he could entice me away from LCU. Funny thing is I STILL don't know why they're fast-tracking me when they've got TENURED professors lined up around the block who also want to work there."

"So with all that going on, are you going to have time to pursue anymore research on space Pokémon?" Tate hesitantly asked.

"I'm sorry Tate, but I was lucky enough to get approval and what funding I could for my thesis project. There's just not enough demand for something like that to generate the funding I'd need to carry out any serious research project. It'll have to wait."

Tate hid his disappointment well, as he had been hoping that Kelly's work would bring her back to Mossdeep City sometime in the near future so that he could spend some more time with her and maybe convey to her that he was interested in being more than just 'friends'.

On the other hand, Liza was doing her absolute best to keep from breaking out the 'happy dance' since it now seemed that _Ms. Smarty-Britches_ wouldn't be getting any opportunity for YEARS to monopolize her brother's time and she was willing to bet that things would easily slip back into normalcy just like the first time Kelly had moved on from Mossdeep City.

The trio chatted for quite a while longer before they were joined by May and Nicole, who suggested they all sit down at one of the tables that had been set up while waiting for dinner to be served. As they sat down, the fading light of the day was suddenly overcome by a blast of bright yellow light as Sara ignited one of the lanterns and hung it from a convenient bolt in one of the posts holding the shelter up. Obviously, there was no electricity this far away from the road. That didn't stop them however from continuing to catch up on each other's lives and ask what each of them was planning for the near future.

*****

Saturday

August 16, 2008

19:43 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

"And here I thought that cooler was filled with nothing but hamburgers and hot dogs young man. Glad to see that you proved me wrong," Frank Hogan admitted as he watched Leo remove several thick cuts of steak and a half dozen large chicken breasts, already marinated from the large white cooler holding all the food for the evening.

"Come on, Frank, it's your anniversary! You could have spent it anywhere with anyone and yet you chose to let Kelly organize your shindig from the location to the food. Did you SERIOUSLY expect that young lady to disappoint you? She put together the grocery list for this outing after all," Leo explained as he expertly assessed the temperature of the coals and threw his dry-rubbed steaks on one grill while placing his marinated chicken on another.

"Oh, right. Now I'm sorry I doubted anything on this trip, that young lady does so much to thank us that it's beginning to make me feel like we're taking advantage of her," Frank spoke in his unique accent that sounded half-Austrian and half-British.

"No kidding, Kelly's a great gal. But I doubt she would have offered this unless she wanted to do it, Frank. Admit it, you helped her out when she probably needed it the most and now you're reaping the rewards for your generosity. What goes around comes around and all that jazz," Leo continued.

"Maybe, but I must admit that it's a little different not being able to see the lights of the city. Almost makes me feel alone out here. It's a little creepy that no one else is around out here to watch the eclipse with us, don't you think?" Frank asked.

"Not really, school starts in a few weeks, so I'm sure any college students in town are probably hitting up the bars and the liquor stores to get a few more parties in before buckling down for fall semester. As for anyone else, this is one of the few camp grounds outside the city limits that don't have electricity in its shelters, so not many people rent these out except for summer day camps and people like us who wanna have a big fire. Just let me build that fire up and you won't feel quite so lonesome anymore," Leo explained.

"You getting spooked again Frank?" Cass asked, coming up behind her husband and wrapping her arms around him from behind, planting her cheek between his shoulder blades and listening to his heartbeat, strong, rhythmic, and steady.

"A little, it's just been a while since I been outside after dark without all the street lights and neon signs lighting up main street. I'll get used to it after a bit," Frank told his wife.

"How's the food lookin'?" Sara asked, stepping over to the grill and idly poking at the meat to see how well it was cooked.

"Another few minutes on this side, then maybe about five to eight on the other side. Don't worry, Smalls, I know you like 'em rare," Leo said, grinning as he did so. He idly noted which steak it was that Sara had touched, automatically dubbing it 'hers' and making sure not to overcook it.

Without even really thinking about it, Sara stood next to Leo, so close that their shoulders were touching each other as Sara hugged her own waist and reveled in Leo's presence. She had nothing against public displays of affection, but seriously, what kind of example would she be setting for those younger than her if she perpetually stole kisses from her boyfriend? It would be easy for kids to mimic that behavior and then springboard off it into something they simply weren't ready for yet.

So she was content to simply share his space, as Leo was content to share hers, as they'd done many a cold, dark night under the stars, wherever in the world they happened to be at the time. They'd always done things their way at their own pace, and they weren't about to do any different. Idly, Leo glanced up, his eyes meeting Frank's as he grinned at him, seeming to convey a single thought.

_Life is good right now._

Frank could only grin back and nod at the younger man's observation. Life at the moment was, indeed, very good right now. Several minutes passed with both couples in silence as Leo tended the grill and only when Leo nudged Sara and nodded towards the cooler did she understand to begin preparing all the sides for Frank and Cass's anniversary dinner.

Minutes later, Sara had laid out the potato salad, coleslaw, wild rice salad, and the cheesy bacon ranch pasta salad with plenty more to spare in the cooler. At the end of the table she placed several different varieties of cola, a jug of tea and another of plain water to wash everything down with.

With all preparations made, Frank and Cass were urged to the front of the buffet line as Sara suddenly materialized out of thin air it seemed, bearing a cake with twenty lit candles on it, much to Frank and Cass's amazement. Even more amazing was the small image crafted at the cake's top at the lower left hand corner; a small Anime-style image of a chibi-Kelly winking up at the happy couple while holding up the "V for Victory" sign.

Kelly, May, Nicole, and all the others clapped and cheered as Frank and Cass blew out the candles together to many cries wishing them many happy returns on their next twenty years together.

*****

Sunday

August 17, 2008

01:50 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

Let it never be said that Leo and Sara didn't take every opportunity to make memories of special occasions. When Sara had materialized beside Frank and Cass with their cake, nobody noticed Leo break out one of his better cameras and prepare to start shooting snapshots of everything that occurred during and after dinner. Everyone had been mildly surprised when the flash went off as Frank and Cass blew out the candles on their cake.

"_I figured you would want a shot of that!_" Leo had said, grinning widely as he did so, earning a chuckle from the seasoned couple who then proceeded to pose numerous times with all their guests as both Leo and Sara went to work, aiming to create a photo album to help them remember a special night spent amongst friends.

After dinner and desert, Leo finally lit the bonfire, claiming that he didn't want to run out of wood before morning. After the initial kerosene-aided blaze settled down and the fire was steadily burning, Kelly returned to the 4Runner's front seat and retrieved everyone's favorite campfire treat, consisting of marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers. Sara glared at Kelly for a brief moment before she snatched the bag and brought it to the fire, hastily setting to work on one of her all-time favorite treats.

"_So, Sara, you want S'more?"_ Leo had started.

"_Some more what? I haven't had any desert yet..."_ Sara had replied with such a look of innocence that everyone was brought up short for a moment. Then Sara's face had broken into a small grin and their gig was up, but Leo still managed to get the last line off.

"_You're killin' me Smalls. You're KILLIN' me,"_ Leo had said, a mile wide grin on his face as Sara's marshmallow caught fire, which she hastily put out as she assembled her first S'more sandwich.

May had giggled at the reference, drawing everyone's attention to her. After she'd finished laughing at Leo and Sara's obvious reenactment, she explained that a similar scene had played out between two characters in one of her favorite movies as a young child, _The Sandlot_, and that the line had come from a kid whose nickname was 'The Great Hambino".

Their cover blown, Sara offered up ready-made S'mores to anyone who wanted them, which pretty much included everyone present as Tate and Liza retrieved their telescope from the trunk of Frank and Cass's Audi A4 and proceeded to set it up about forty feet in front of the bonfire, pointed towards the opposite side of the field away from the firelight. After some brief calculations based on the positioning of several constellations, Tate and Liza had the telescope situated perfectly for a view of the moon when the eclipse started.

In the meantime however, since they had gotten all this started around ten o'clock last night, they at first offered views of the various planets that were visible in the night sky. Venus, Mars, and Saturn were visible that night, and although they weren't able to spot Saturn's rings with such a small telescope, everyone enjoyed having the twins along as they were a veritable wealth of knowledge concerning anything having to do with astronomy.

While Sara and Cass cranked out S'mores, Leo was busy photographing all the other guests during the party, especially the moments shared by Frank and Cass, assisted greatly with a ruby-coated telephoto lens as the veteran couple regaled the younger generation with stories from their youth. Tales of hardship and strife against everyday life from both of them before they'd ever met, sometimes even fighting tooth and nail against their own family's wishes.

In thanks for sharing some of their life's story with them, May, Kelly, and the other trainers told some of their stories about the journeys they had been on, the people they'd battled, the sometimes unbelievable circumstances they found themselves in, and the experiences they'd had along the way with the friends they'd had at their side.

When Leo felt he'd gotten enough pictures of the guests of honor, he rejoined the party and helped Sara tell some of their stories that everyone seemed interested in hearing about. It wasn't every day that a pair of the world's most traveled globetrotters was around to share some of their many experiences with others.

Also, oddly enough, Katie began to make subtle advances on Leo throughout the night. While Sara was sometimes absorbed in making S'mores, Katie would sit down beside Leo and ask him questions in a subdued tone of voice so that Sara wouldn't hear the younger woman over the sound of the fire. Not that it did Katie any good, Sara had ears almost like a wolf and even if she didn't, then Katie's body language was telling enough.

On the other side of the campfire, Tate was taking a page out of Katie's book and modifying it. Instead of asking several questions of Kelly, he simply asked her what she was doing right now at LCU, what she hoped to accomplish, and simply let her go into detail about everything she felt comfortable enough to talk about. All the while, Liza seemed a little disgruntled, but kept it in check by reviewing the locations of her favorite constellations, hoping that tonight may be the last time her twin brother would see Kelly for a long time.

On the outskirts of Camp Hogan laid the myriad of Pokémon species in peaceful slumber, bellies full and thirsts sated as they had seen to the disposal of their own food and any leftovers from the party. They had tired themselves all out playing and sparring well into the evening, with occasional unofficial challenges between two trainers or coordinators.

Eventually however, Leo asked Tate to help him make a few rounds of the campsite to make sure they hadn't left any significant pieces of trash in their wake, which of course left Sara to abruptly twist towards Katie and level a glare at her that could have easily stripped paint off a battleship at 500 yards.

"_You've got SOME NERVE Wheeler," _Sara had said, "_going after MY boyfriend."_

"_Well excuse me for misunderstanding. Hot guy, what appears to be a platonic brother-sister relationship in public, and to top it all off, there ain't a ring on his finger, so in my book, that sounds more like a personal problem to me. Either claim him or let someone else have a shot," _Katie replied.

"O_h quit being such a CUM-eating, COCK-sucking, SHIT-faced, FUCK-tard!!_" Sara had hissed vehemently, well aware that there were others around. The last thing she needed was to make a scene in front of Frank and Cass on their Anniversary.

"_Hit a nerve there, did I? I'm sorry, but I can't help that I find Leo attractive. You know what they say, All's Fair in Love and War,"_ Katie replied.

_"Alright, FUCK with me cock-sucker, and we will SEE who SHITS on the sidewalk!!"_ Sara hissed again as she looked about ready to strike out at her almost-rival.

But all of a sudden, Kelly appeared behind Katie and skillfully twisted the younger woman's earlobe and whispered in a deathly calm voice into Katie's opposite ear, "_That will be QUITE enough Ms. Wheeler! Come with me a moment, IF YOU PLEASE!"_ as Kelly dragged Katie towards the tree-line with the older trainer whimpering all the way in significant pain.

May sighed loudly, having reminisced about the past few hours while waiting for Kelly to return after dragging Katie off into the woods for a nice little 'chat', if one of professor Kelly Cruz-Marin's students were ever so inclined to call it that.

As May waited for her friend to return, she couldn't help but notice that when Leo and Tate returned from two rounds about the camp looking for trash, Sara immediately rose to meet Leo and promptly laid a kiss on him that had made HER toes curl in anticipation. Being only about 15 feet away from them in a chair around a dying fire, it was hard to hear Sara's comment.

"That seem platonic at all to you, lover?" Sara asked.

"Not a chance in Hell," came Leo's immediate reply, resuming the kiss full-force.

And only about five feet to Leo and Sara's right, sat Frank and Cass in their own chairs, snuggling together. They seemed only mildly interested that Leo and Sara were basically making out right beside them.

"Ah, remember when we were like that darling?" Cass asked her husband.

"Damn straight. And it was just as good last week as the day we were married," Frank replied, grinning as he drew his wife in for a kiss that was almost as heated as Leo and Sara's.

May could only look on at the two couples in an emotional state that was part contentment, part bitterness, and part uncertainty; contentment for Kelly's friends who had all obviously found love in their lives and then worked hard to make the relationship work. Bitterness at her own recently failed relationship and how she hadn't been able to see Drew as the bad apple that he had always been; and uncertainty over any future love interest, wondering if perhaps there even WAS a person out there in the world who would love her for who she was and remain faithful to her.

Although the scene before her evoked such a negative outlook, she couldn't find it in herself to hold it against either couple for bringing these feelings to the forefront of her mind. Finding her train of thought to be going back down that same highly unpleasant route labeled "Drew", she decided to let go of her bitterness and instead focus more on the remaining two.

She was happy to see Kelly's friends in such stable relationships, proving that such relationships were possible, even under extreme adversity if Frank and Cass were any indication. And despite the proof of that fact staring her directly in the face at point-blank range, she inwardly began to unknowingly center on her own romantic uncertainties.

Setting her cup down on the ground beside her chair, May removed her gloves and brought her hands up to her face, feeling for blemishes or any trace of what she perceived as imperfections. While her skin was as fair as could be, she thought her nose was just a little too pointy, her cheekbones a little too stuck-out, and her ears a little larger than the last time she remembered checking. Bringing her hair up to her eye-level, all she seemed to see was split-ends since she hadn't used conditioner since she enrolled in summer school months ago. Her hair had also dulled in brightness, making her spirits fall a little further as she usually took a great deal of pride in how her hair looked.

As she worked her way downward from her head to her toes, her self-inventory only made her expression droop that much more. Her shoulders were too narrow, her boobs drew so much attention that many people rarely looked her in the eye at first glance anymore, her stomach wasn't flat enough, her hips too wide, and her feet too big. May could almost feel the tears beginning to prick her eyes.

"_The only reason people haven't called me Ugly yet is because they're too busy ogling my chest to look at the rest of me,"_ May thought to herself, her uncertainty on the verge of blooming into despair.

"My goodness May, you're looking pretty down. What's the matter?" Nicole asked, having finished her volunteer duties of cleaning up the dining area.

May was so startled that her hands abruptly flew to her midsection and quickly wrapped around her torso in a self-hug of sorts. Her eyes were moving everywhere except in Nicole's direction and May could have sworn she felt the beginnings of a cold sweat coming on.

Nicole's demeanor softened even more so as she took in how very tense her young friend had become within the space of only a few heartbeats. With slow, measured movements, Nicole calmly sat down beside May and folded her hands in her own lap.

"May, how are you feeling right now?" Nicole asked, deciding to take a different approach. If she couldn't get to the heart of the matter, then she'd settle for trying to ease whatever was causing this tension in her friend.

May's response was almost unintelligible. A series of small mumbles were all that Nicole's ears could discern over the crackling of the bonfire and all the sounds associated with the late evening.

"Come on May, you'll have to do better than that. Where's all that confidence I see so often gone to now?" Nicole gently persuaded, still not moving from her original position.

"I said, it's not HERE right now, leave a message," May retorted in an almost pouting manner, as if disbelieving that someone was being nice to her while she was feeling so disheartened.

Nicole's only response was to gently place one of her hands against May's elbow, gently offering her support to her friend. Even though it was sometimes very uncomfortable for her to be there with friends who were upset or grieving, there she stayed because that was where she felt she was needed. Even though it hurt her to be there, it was what friends did for each other. Thankfully, Nicole's patience was rewarded a few minutes later when May sniffled slightly, rubbed at her eyes a few moments, and then proceeded to break the ice between them.

"I feel lousy, ugly, and stupid," May started to explain, bringing Nicole up short.

"I should have seen that a relationship with Drew would never work out, I should have paid closer attention to how he was behaving during our relationship, I should have seen the infidelity coming, and most of all, I should have KNOWN that a fuck-ugly duckling with a pair of tits like me would never turn out to be a swan..." May trailed off, her rant delivered in a subdued monotone.

"I feel like such a hypocrite right now. Here I was earlier telling the others not to spoil the mood and here I went..."

"That's enough May," Nicole said gently, pulling the younger girl into a side-hug as she gently rubbed soothing circles into May's tense back.

"What brought this on?" Nicole asked quietly, continuing her backrub as she took a firm, but gentle grasp on May's hand.

"I didn't mean to get so worked up, but those four were just standing over there, looking for all the world like picture perfect couples...and the only thing that seemed to keep popping into my head was the question "_What's so wrong with me that I couldn't make it work?_" May explained as her voice began moving towards the nasal range since her sinuses began to get congested from the emotional roller coaster that she was now riding.

Nicole began to make soft comforting noises and gently rocked the younger girl from side to side a few moments as May began to regain her control, her moment of emotional turmoil passing almost as quickly as it had appeared. A few minutes later, May gently blew her nose on a handkerchief she had begun to keep around for just this reason and wiped her eyes carefully, lest she spoil the mood of the evening anymore than she might have already.

Thankfully, upon looking up, it seemed that Leo, Sara, Frank, and Cass had either not noticed her small episode at all or were simply choosing to let Nicole handle the situation, as May saw them all conversing quietly while gazing up towards the stars and the now visible moon appearing over the treetops.

"Feeling any better?" Nicole asked politely as she stopped rocking the two of them and concluded her backrub with a small smile of understanding.

"Yes, thank you."

"Anything you feel like talking about?"

May paused at the question. Clearly, Nicole wouldn't push her to answer, but even May could see that after all this time, perhaps talking about it would help more than simply assuming she was past the stage where she was still upset over how her relationship with Drew had ended. After another few moments, May picked up where she'd left off.

"It's hard to lose something that was an important part of my life for so long and yet see others enjoying what I can't despite doing everything in my power to make it work. I don't hold it against them; it just feels so...hopeless when you know what it is you want in a relationship and have no way to reach it despite seeing proof to the contrary everywhere you turn."

Nicole nodded. It would be difficult for anyone to suffer a breakup like May's and then come to a gathering like this, celebrating many long years of couples remaining steadfast in their devotion to each other when May's relationship with Drew hadn't lasted more than a few years at most, according to Kelly. That was actually how Nicole knew as much as she did about the circumstances of May's breakup; her eccentric professor talking to herself in the lab as the TV stations ran yet another gossip column on the seven o'clock news.

"So the fact that you don't see yourself as capable of maintaining a romantic relationship leads you to the conclusion that you're an unattractive idiot?" Nicole asked again, this time with clear skepticism in her voice.

May visibly flinched at the question, but it did serve its purpose of knocking the monkey-wrench inside the gears of her head loose and allow the cogs to start turning again.

"I guess it is a little silly..." May answered, her voice only somewhat sounding like she believed the words coming out of her mouth.

"A LITTLE SILLY, May Maple? I'd say the very concept is downright absurd. You're comparing your first actual romantic relationship to this ideal you've fostered inside your head probably since you were a little girl. From what Kelly tells me, the fact that this relationship failed had nothing to do with anything YOU were doing," Nicole continued.

"Quite frankly, I would say you were lucky to figure out what a two-timing sleaze this Drew turned out to be before your relationship progressed any further than it did..." Nicole said, her voice trailing off.

May's attention abruptly shifted as she tried to make eye contact with Nicole, but the older woman's eyes seemed to be fixed firmly at the red hot embers at the base of the bonfire.

"So...the same thing happened to you, only it was further along than my case?" May asked timidly; almost afraid to broach the subject with Nicole.

"Yes." The silence between them stretched out for more than a minute as May found herself returning the favor that Nicole had granted her not ten minutes ago.

"I've made a lot of mistakes in my life May. I've ignored people who are important to me during my studies, I've misjudged the intentions others had from the moment I met them, and I've allowed myself on a few occasions to sacrifice my moral integrity in the name of feelings that I thought were important in the long run," Nicole said, her voice taking on a serious tone as she again met May's eyes.

"Despite my best efforts, it was a situation that the Creators themselves couldn't have salvaged. But I learned from my mistakes, dusted myself off, and did the best I could given the circumstances I found myself in. It will be no different for you and this too shall pass. It will take time and effort, but I think it will get easier for you, just as it did for me," Nicole continued, her smile returning.

"Thank you Nicole, for everything you said," May replied, hugging her old friend firmly as she began to understand that her world wasn't going to end just because she and Drew hadn't worked as a couple.

"I believe you'll come out of this a stronger person May Maple. Just keep in mind that no matter how often you fall or from what height, you're only going to fail if you don't get back up and try again."

"You're right," May said, grinning slightly as her gaze again fell on the two elder couples present that evening. Before she had looked at them and seen something that was beyond her reach. Now with some insight from Nicole, she looked upon those four people and realized that what they possessed was something she simply hadn't reached YET.


	3. Chapter 3

**Act Three **

*****

Sunday

August 17, 2008

02:37 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

Kelly arrived back at the bonfire after giving Katie a fairly thorough tongue-lashing about causing scenes during parties that involved friends that she held in high regard. She felt completely vindicated that Katie's earlobe would no doubt remain purple for another four days.

Upon arriving back at the bonfire, her immediate attention was focused on locating May, which proved to be none too difficult as she was sitting beside Nicole on the opposite side of the bonfire from where she currently stood. The two looked to be getting along fabulously, but once Nicole made eye contact with her, her intern promptly excused herself from May's side and began walking towards her with a neutral expression on her face.

When they were finally speaking distance from each other, Nicole spoke first.

"May almost had a breakdown just now Kelly."

"Say what?!" Kelly hissed, already beating herself up mentally for not being here for May when she needed a friend.

"She was watching those four and eventually started comparing herself and Drew to them. She came to the conclusion that there must be something wrong that SHE did in that relationship to make it fall apart. I've managed to calm her down and get her to see a bit of reason, but I'm sure she'd benefit all the more if you went and sat with her for a while." Nicole explained, knowing that Kelly cared a great deal for May's wellbeing on several levels.

"Thanks, I appreciate it. I owe you one for this. I should have been here..."

"Don't worry professor. I was glad to do it. But don't think I won't call in this favor if I really need to get out a bind in regards to schoolwork," Nicole replied, grinning slightly as she tested the waters for a theory that was forming in the back of her head.

To her credit, Kelly actually stood stock still and thought about Nicole's request for a full five seconds.

"For this, you get ONE extension, stipulation, or day off. Choose wisely."

With that, Kelly moved over to where May was sitting, leaving her intern standing stock still with eyes that were about twice as large as they normally were. Her stunned expression eventually sprouted a toothy grin as Nicole basked in the glow of the extraordinarily rare verbal victory over assistant professor Kelly Cruz-Marin.

"_May should visit more often! There's no WAY she would have agreed to that otherwise."_ Nicole thought to herself as she pumped her fist twice and struggled with all her might to contain the squeal that was threatening to escape from her lungs.

The squeal abruptly died when she realized how much Kelly must care about May for her to make an exception of this caliber. Almost disbelievingly, she decided to observe her professor and her old friend more closely for the rest of the evening, if only to satisfy her own curiosity.

*****

"So did you give Katie what for?" May asked her friend as Kelly sat down in the seat vacated by Nicole.

"The Riot Act; chapter AND verse," Kelly replied, winking at May as they began giggling together in almost perfect unison.

"Did you see the look on her face as I was dragging her towards the tree line?" Kelly asked, grinning as she did so.

"Did I EVER! That brings back memories of that one guy in our class who just would NOT shut up! You must have dragged him out of the lab twice a week!" May continued, struggling not to hyperventilate.

"Ugh! Don't remind me May! He was THIS close to getting booted from the class and taking an Incomplete for the summer term. Only reason I probably didn't is that I never wanted to see him in my classroom again."

"Eh, it serves Katie right for trying to butt into Sara's turf. Leo and Sara seem like they've been together too long to let someone like Katie break them up," May said.

"You better believe it. They've known each other for almost seven years now and have been a couple for more than two years," Kelly explained.

"It took them five YEARS to get together?" May asked, dumbfounded.

"Well yeah. Back when Leo and Sara first met, Sara was still working for another photography company. Even when Leo managed to entice her away from her employer to come and work for him, they were sometimes apart for months at a stretch. Not exactly conducive to establishing a relationship, you know?"

"Yeah, I can see that happening," May said, her voice trailing off as her gaze yet again drifted back in the direction of Frank, Cass, Leo, and Sara.

"So Nicole tells me you had a small issue just now..." Kelly began, wanting to see if May even still wanted to talk about it.

"Yeah, I did. Nicole sorted me out pretty quick though," May replied, her face neutral.

"I sense something unresolved in that statement," Kelly said.

"Yeah, there is. Whenever I see those four, I see individuals with qualities I prefer, attitudes I can appreciate, and character that I can only hope of one day emanating from my own actions. If I'd been born eight or nine years earlier, Leo would be just the kind of guy I'd wanna date. The kind of guy that ANY girl would wanna date..." May said.

"Eh, he's not my type, but I see what you're getting at. Where's this 'something unresolved' fit into the mix?" Kelly asked.

"Well, I see someone like that, and I honestly wonder if I could ever find someone like that my own age. Someone who won't care about the fact that I can scarf down a triple portion of ramen without blinking, or occasionally being my old clumsy self, or even that I have boobs the size of tangerines at my age. Is my better half really out there?" May continued, idly looking at the moon.

"They are. I KNOW they are," Kelly replied confidently without as much as a speck of doubt.

May was slightly taken aback at the amount of confidence Kelly had in that belief and it showed on her face.

"What makes you say that?" May asked, her expression somehow morphing into genuine curiosity.

"Because I could never imagine a person as talented, caring, dedicated, and loyal as you are would never find someone willing to do whatever it takes to make you happy for the rest of your life. That just does NOT compute in my head May...and besides, until the day comes when you find that person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, I'll be here for you," Kelly said, one of the most genuine smiles on her face that May had ever seen.

May looked away. She had to, because the tears were prickling the backs of her eyes and all she could think about in that moment was how very much she didn't think she deserved having Kelly as her friend. Even after all the time they'd spent apart and the vast distance that had grown between them, Kelly Cruz-Marin was still raring, ready, and willing to go to bat for May Maple.

"Thanks Kelly...that means a lot, coming from you," May replied, wiping her right arm across her eyes only once before meeting Kelly's eyes once more. For some reason, the infinitely quiet resolve that she saw there, written as plain as day for all to see, no longer surprised her.

Kelly did nothing but nod her head before leaning back into the seat and putting her feet up, perfectly willing to relax and sneak glances in May's direction every so often. She understood perfectly what it was like to question your own love life after such an emotionally jarring event as discovering that your almost-lover was cheating on you behind your back. If only she had been so fortunate...

The two young ladies resumed their companionable silence as they waited for the eclipse to begin, both idly sneaking glances at the other, as if so reassure themselves that they really were still sitting beside each other.

*****

Frank Hogan wouldn't call himself the most observant of human beings that he'd ever known; far from it actually. There were several people he'd known over the years that could tell what was going on around them with far greater accuracy than he had ever been capable of in his life. However, that didn't erase the strange inkling that was currently nudging around in the back of his mind as he idly watched his young friend Kelly Cruz-Marin and her guest, May, sit next to each other on the opposite side of the bonfire from where he currently sat at a wooden table under the picnic shelter, nursing a stout beer.

Beside him sat young Leo Stroud in one of the camp chairs with attached foot rest, likewise nursing a beer of his own choice. As Frank idly followed the direction of Leo's stare, he grinned at the very unsurprising subject of his attention, his girlfriend Sara who was sitting beside of Frank's wife. They were much closer to the bonfire's shrinking remains on account that a chill had been passing through the air for longer than a few hours now, long after the sun had set.

For what must have been the fourth time that he'd noticed, he watched as Kelly snuck a glance in May's direction and then, almost like clockwork, May returned said glance discretely not twenty seconds after Kelly had looked away. Frank sighed lightly as he once again began to question his judgment on the matter of whether or not he was reading too much into the situation. On one hand, the two young women were genuinely concerned for one another as true friends should be and on the other hand was a situation that he wasn't entirely comfortable about.

In case of the former, he watched enough news to know the hardships that young May Maple had endured over the past several months and he'd never begrudge Kelly from developing any strong friendships since it seemed all that little girl ever did was bury herself in work for the university. However, in case of the latter, he felt like he knew enough about May and especially Kelly, that he didn't want to just let the matter drop when he could potentially somehow intervene and avert something that was potentially disastrous on several levels.

But first things first, if Frank was going to come to any conclusion on this matter, he needed a second opinion on the situation. And as luck would have it, about the only other person at the party who might possibly understand where he was coming from was sitting not three feet from him.

"_Well, here goes nothing,_" Frank thought to himself.

"Hey, Leo..." Frank trailed off, as if checking to make sure the young man wasn't zoned out.

"Yeah Frank?"

"Have you noticed Kelly and her guest acting...oh I don't know...odd or anything this evening?" The older man asked fluidly, acting as if he were completely comfortable with the situation even though he had felt his gut tightening over the past several minutes.

"Like how they've been sneaking peeks at each other all evening?" Leo asked, turning his almost-bored expression to meet Frank's stare.

To Frank's credit, his only reaction was a slight widening of his eyes before they returned to normal as he chuckled slightly before taking a long draw from his beer.

"I didn't think anyone else had noticed," Frank thought aloud in a tone that almost sounded like an apology of sorts.

"Frank, everyone in the, camp save Katie and the twins, has noticed most likely and that's because they've been staring at...other things...for most of the night..." Leo trailed off, his face reddening slightly as he recalled some of Katie's more obvious advances. After all, most girls he knew didn't cling to his arm while rubbing said arm between the cleft of their breasts within two hours of meeting him whilst simultaneously giggling and making inane compliments about his 'rugged good looks'.

"Then, I understand that this isn't exactly my business and call me crazy for asking a question like this if you must, but are they...?" Frank then merely raised his empty hand and wiggled his pinky finger where Leo could see it.

Having been exposed to popular Japanese culture before, Leo understood the sign for what it was; a question about whether or not May and Kelly were seeing each other romantically.

"You know, Sara asked me that same question not too long after we finished dinner. You have to understand Frank, that Sara and I haven't seen Kelly in MONTHS. For all that we know this could either be a recent development or something that's been just beneath the surface for far longer. The honest truth is that Kelly's a hard person to read; she's very private, doesn't publicly date anyone that Sara or I know of, and for all appearances seems to be just another Wunderkind trying to make her way in the world," Leo began.

"However, I have to admit that while May's been around, she's certainly acted differently. She's happier than we've seen her in a while, more willing to interact with others even if it's just a few others that she happens to work with for the most part, and I'm sure even you've noticed that she's only put the professor's hat on ONE TIME tonight," Leo continued, watching Frank nod as he realized that the usually stoic and professional Kelly had seemed to 'let her hair down', as Cass had so eloquently put it.

"But if what you're looking for is an honest answer, then I'd have to quote Sara on this one and tell you that from the looks of things, if they aren't already together, then they very likely will be sometime in the future. And before you ask, there isn't any specific timeframe attached to that 'educated guess' that she put forth," Leo finished, holding up his finger just as Frank was about to interrupt him as Leo took a draw from his own brew.

Frank's expression didn't so much turn grim, but rather troubled. Leo noted it was as if Frank was desperately seeking an answer to a question he had no clue how to go about solving, almost like a sixth grader trying to find a way to engineer a solution to world hunger. It was a problem that obviously pulled at Frank's heartstrings and yet forbade him from finding a solution that made everyone happy. All this passed through Frank's eyes in a matter of seconds before Leo saw the older man make an effort to reply.

"That...that ain't...right..." Frank trailed off, clearly at odds with himself over the possibility that Kelly and May might be romantically interested in each other.

"It isn't right...according to whom?" Leo quietly asked.

Frank was slightly offended by Leo's challenging of his beliefs, but as Leo seemed genuinely interested in his answer, Frank figured he would let it slide for the most part.

"Well, you're the Christian in the group, so why aren't you telling me?" Frank asked, his gaze narrowing in sudden realization, his offense growing somewhat at the thought that Leo might very well be mocking him by acting as if he didn't know the obvious answer to a common knowledge question.

"If you're looking for the textbook answer, then an iron-clad reply would center on the Old Testament's decree that a relationship between two women would condemn them both to Hell," Leo answered quietly, but firmly.

"However, the New Testament rarely addresses such an issue as clearly as it did in the Old Testament. The truly unfortunate part is that with so many different translations and interpretations of these rare instances where the issue of same-sex relationships is brought up, the New Testament passages lose the absolute certainty that they possessed in the Old Testament. There are simply too many people with too many opinions on how to interpret these passages in the New Testament to single one out and label it as 'The Gold Standard'. And this doesn't even address the simple fact that Christianity, at its core, was never intended to serve as the foundation for multiple denominations of religious institutions. Christianity was meant to serve as a guide to humble and promote the well-being of the mind, body, and spirit. Above all else, Christianity was meant to serve as a means by which to have a meaningful relationship with a power or being greater than yourself, by whatever name you choose to acknowledge it as," Leo said.

"Okay, now my head just freaking HURTS. In case you didn't notice, what I was trying to get at was that if they ARE together or if they DO GET together then, they're taking a huge risk. No relationship is worth an eternity of misery..." Frank continued rubbing his temples in an effort to calm the headache brought on by the sheer volume of theology that Leo had just breezed through as if it were an everyday occurrence.

"What's the bigger risk Frank? Not following your heart for fear of the ever-loving, ever-forgiving God's rejection OR doing exactly what you're told by someone of this Earth who claims to understand what they're talking about and squandering your free will, God's greatest gift, like a coin buried in the sand?"

Frank didn't have an easy answer to that question. On one hand, not following your heart and letting something that made you happy slip away forever was at odds with God's wish that, above all else, he wanted everyone to have life and have it abundantly. On the other hand, simply allowing one person, or heaven forbid, one _institution_, to tell you how to conduct your life and never exercising your free will, would paint an individual much like the servant who was given one gold piece, buried it in the sand, and did nothing with it, ultimately being called, by the servant's Master, a 'wicked, evil servant'.

"AND...my brain just fried," Leo thought aloud, drawing Frank back into the present, his gaze still occasionally landing on the two young women on the other side of the bonfire's remains. Idly, he noticed Leo set his empty bottle down on the wooden table behind his chair as he sat up and turned to meet Frank's gaze once more.

"Listen Frank, all that was just a whole bunch of mumbo-jumbo that people with agendas typically spout so that they can remain 'politically correct' in the eyes of the media. When it all comes down to my personal beliefs, here's the way I see it; the Bible is called the 'Inerrant Word of God', meaning to me personally, that it's not UP for interpretation except to the individual who's reading it. It is the responsibility of that individual to utilize their free will to interpret the 'Inerrant Word of God' for themselves by consulting with the Man Upstairs while they do so. Anything other than the 'Inerrant Word of God' is either conjecture or an opinion of another individual, which should both be respected and yet taken with a grain of salt as their interpretation might not be YOUR interpretation," Leo explained.

"You don't have to like their interpretation, you don't have to agree with it, and you certainly don't have to support it, but you SHOULD respect it so that they in turn might respect yours. As for all the confusion and multiple opinions regarding specific passages, then I have to admit that he left us some bona-fide hum-dinger one-liners in a language we hardly speak anymore. But the way I see it, if I can wrap my head around the fact that those two being together makes them happier than they've ever been before in their lives, then I reckon he can too," Leo continued.

"After all, this isn't the first time I've wondered about this whole 'love' thing. Years ago, before I met Sara, since I never stayed in one place long enough to really get to know people, I would just be out and about, living my life and seeing all these couples everywhere I went. I kept asking myself when or even IF I was ever going to find someone like that, and on those lonely nights, I would look up and ask God, _'If everything good comes from you, and you made Love, did you make it for everyone?'_ And that's the question I ask myself every time I see something like this Frank, and through it all I've only ever come to one solid conclusion..." Leo trailed off.

"And that would be..."

"It's not our place to offer judgment on them or try and make them change Frank, that's something only they can do," Leo replied.

"I just can't help thinking that...I don't know...maybe we could prevent it and help them avoid anything disastrous. The last thing I wanna see is Kelly get hurt; the poor girl's responsible enough for someone twice her age and yet there's always the chance that something like love would blind her enough to allow some...third-rate scumbag close enough to shatter her ta' pieces. No one, especially not someone as brilliant as Kelly or even May deserves that..." Frank trailed off, thinking about the hardships his own two kids had gone through some years before. Maybe the reason why it hurt more with Kelly was that Frank had accepted her as some strange mix of a mentee and the kid-next-door whenever she'd gone out of her way to return the acts of kindness that he and Cass had shown her when she was first hired on as an assistant professor at LCU.

"I imagine that if you tried to intervene or 'prevent' something from happening between them, even if you thought it was for their own good, that you would only make them both angrier and less likely to listen to you. The more you tell someone that they can't do something typically only motivates them to prove you wrong. In the end, you don't have to understand or approve of their choices Frank. That's their onus to bear and when they're called to answer for it, I'm sure they'd both willingly do just that, by the looks of things," Leo replied.

"It's just, they're such good kids. I don't want to think that someone as generous and bright as those two might spend eternity in misery, you know?"

"Frank, I'm speaking from experience here, and we're talking about stuff WAY above our pay grade. It's not our place to make any kind of decision regarding those two. Like the Good Book says, his plan is a mystery. Who among us knows what he's got up his sleeve? I know for a fact that I don't, so I just assume let the Man Upstairs do what he's done since light broke through the darkness," Leo answered with a small grin.

"I suppose it was kinda' pretentious to think that I could solve a problem like that for them. Even more so given my background, but I guess when it all comes down to it, all we can really do is take care of the people who love us and be there to catch them when they fall. The rest really is between them and whatever God they acknowledge," Frank thought aloud, a small content smile lighting on his face as he watched Cass bask in the warmth by the fire, bathed in that unique red-orange glow of flame. He noticed that Sara had yet to leave the older woman's side as the two continued to trade stories while Sara made the occasional S'mores treat.

"Sara really is a lucky girl...to have a guy as wise and caring as you are at her side," Frank thought aloud.

"Nah, it's the other way around Frank. I'm the one who's lucky and if I had half a mind to me, I'd go chase down that crazy bear and find some way to thank her..." Leo mumbled, obviously drifting in and out of a light sleep after such a mentally tiring conversation.

Frank turned to look at Leo with an almost incredulous look on his face.

"Bear...?"

*****

Tate Cernan considered himself to be a patient sort of person. Astronomers had to be patient by default of course due to the fact that the subject of their studies was often so far out of their reach that they could never dare to even hope of accelerating the natural order of universal bodies. Thus, patience was an astronomer's greatest tool and ally in the search for the answers to the mysteries of the universe.

At the current moment however, Tate was so antsy that his sister could almost believe that someone had slipped several red hot coals into his shoes and then left him to his world-class hotfoot. Despite her brother's obviously growing impatience, Liza was having a pleasant time. It wasn't often she traveled beyond Mossdeep Island, much less in the company of people who didn't know even a tenth of what she did about astronomy. She and her brother had basically started teaching to anyone who was interested the Mossdeep Observatory's Astronomy 101 course on the location of all the constellations and the stories behind their discovery and names.

Surprisingly, Liza found herself in the rare position of 'teacher' over the course of the evening when even Kelly Cruz-Marin had ventured over to their telescope and asked if there was anything worth seeing in the sky that night. Even more surprising than suddenly being able to turn the tables on the Lilycove native was the fact that Liza had enjoyed the role of 'the knowledgeable one', teaching others the basics of her trade and passion. But at the moment nothing was occupying her attention quite as fully as her brother's demeanor, who hadn't seemed to take his eyes off Kelly since dinner had come to an end.

However, since Kelly had left their side at the telescope some time ago to reprimand Katie for her borderline rude behavior towards Sara, the LCU assistant professor returned, only to sit down beside May Maple near the bonfire's remains. With that one act, Tate's attention was firmly displaced from stargazing with his sister to studying the interactions between the object of his affection and her guest. Needless to say, Liza wasn't foolish enough to think that smacking her dear brother on his inattentive noggin' would produce any reaction other than simple annoyance.

After watching her brother secretly fawn over the purple-haired Lilycove professor for what seemed like over an hour, her brother nodded, as if only to himself, before turning to address her.

"I'm gonna take a break sis, you want anything else from the shelter when I head back this direction?" Her brother asked politely.

Liza was about to ask him to bring her a couple of sodas and a snack to share between them, but upon looking into his resolved stare, she merely responded in the negative and turned her attention back to the sky, consulting her watch as she did so for the current time. She had absolutely no concrete idea regarding what was going to happen next and while she'd never wish any kind of harm on her brother, be it physical or emotional, she was secretly hoping that Tate's interest in Kelly would not be reciprocated and that their lives could more or less start getting back to normal, or at least their version of normal.

Tate would never claim to be much of a smooth talker, so as he neared Kelly and May he couldn't help but notice that the two of them had gotten somewhat quiet and had scooted closer together. Continuing onto his original destination of the picnic shelter, Tate noticed there was something of a chill in the night air as he watched another guest part company with Cass Hogan and walk towards May and Kelly. As he arrived underneath the shelter, he noticed that Leo had put a kettle over some of the lower burning embers in the charcoal grill and set aside a box of instant hot cocoa in case anybody wanted a hot drink that wasn't coffee.

Inspiration struck Tate on how he might smoothly enter May and Kelly's conversation, or lack thereof, and after a quick glance to confirm that Leo's girlfriend, whom he'd only been introduced to hours ago, had sat down next to Kelly and May. He prepared four cups of the instant cocoa and put lids on all of them, stacking them up two-by-two for ease of handling on his part as he made his way back towards the three ladies who seemed to have started up another conversation.

"Hot cocoa anyone?" Tate asked politely.

"Why thank you Tate! That was very thoughtful of you," Kelly replied, smiling as she took one of the cups for herself and the other for May while Tate handed another to Sara, who also graced him with a smile.

"I'm never one to turn down hot chocolate. Thank you young man," Sara said.

"Mind if I sit down and warm up some too?" Tate asked, his gut clenching only slightly. So far, nothing felt awkward as of yet, but that could change at any moment if he put his foot in his mouth.

"Not at all Tate; you and Liza have been hovering over the telescope ever since dinner, so it kind of figures that you two would get cold sooner or later. She just happened to remember her jacket," May replied, grinning slightly as Tate flushed in only slight embarrassment as he took a seat with his back to the fire, savoring the feel of warmth beginning to seep into his skin through his clothes.

"There are days that I wish I had a brother or a sister; goodness knows it would make certain parts of my life easier if I had someone that close that I could rely on whenever the going gets too tough for one person to handle by themselves," Kelly thought aloud, sipping her cocoa as she did so.

"They might be handy to have around in a pinch Kelly, but then you've got one like my sister who seems intent on never letting you forget that even though she's only two minutes older than me; she acts like she's two YEARS older most of the time. I know she's just trying to look out for me, but there are days I positively can't STAND being around her," Tate explained, as May nodded her head in agreement.

"That may be true on some days Tate, but my little brother just recently hit quite a bump on the road of life and came to me for help even before he talked to our parents. Yeah, I know siblings can be pretty frustrating at times, but would you honestly hold something like that against Liza if she came to you asking for help she knew she might not get anywhere else?" May asked.

"No, I guess not. If she really needed my help with something, I'd be there no questions asked. I just wish she'd cut back on all the teasing; it's not like I don't already have enough on my mind without her adding to the mix," Tate continued, remembering all too well how much teasing he had to endure once his sister discovered that he was crushing on Kelly.

Of course, that was one of the reasons he seized the opportunity to be here tonight. After Liza pretty much blurted out the fact that he had a crush on Kelly to their parents, he sought his father's advice on how to go about telling a girl that he liked her. His father's response centered on being bold and having enough confidence to admit, in front of other people no less, that you liked said girl enough to pursue a relationship with her.

Tate burned the expression his father used into his mind that day; "_Son, if you're scared of admitting you like a girl in front of other people, then you're being a bit of a wuss. If you date a girl, then sooner or later, the question is gonna come up. Best to out yourself right from the start so there aren't any misconceptions on anyone's mind. Besides, girls that are Kelly's age, and your mother when I first met her around the same time, appreciate confidence and the fact that you're willing to fight for them,_" his father said.

"...But like you said May, there are days I wanna just tie her to a chair and head up to the station for a solid month where she can't POSSIBLY nag my ears off," Tate continued, taking a large swill from his cooling cup of cocoa.

"Station? What station?" Sara asked, speaking up for the first time with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Oh! You got the Mossdeep LEO Observatory up and running? I read about that when you guys got started on it years ago, but lost track of it after the first year," May said, scratching the back of her head as she did so in slight embarrassment.

"Mossdeep City Gym doubles as a Space Center, Sara, with a fully functioning launch pad, shuttle, and now a prototype Observatory/Lab in Low Earth Orbit," Kelly explained.

"I've read about it before, I just didn't realize you could go up there on a whim to get away from your sister," Sara replied, grinning in Tate's direction as the young astronaut merely flushed slightly in response.

"Well, maybe not RIGHT AWAY, but I can certainly sign up for a month-long stint without either Mom OR Dad batting an eye," Tate said.

"Sounds like a standard photo-shoot for me and Leo. Last one we did was down in the Southern Andes Mountains somewhere right on the border of Chile and Argentina. Took us over five hours to get airlifted in by helicopter," Sara mentioned.

"You see, that's one of the downsides to traveling planet side. As long as skies are clear when we blast off or land, we don't have to worry about things like inclement weather," Tate said, grinning.

"Oh yeah, well if we happen to lose contact with the outside world, WE don't have to worry about something like running out of AIR," Sara shot back, matching Tate's grin.

Kelly, with a look on her face that was part exasperation, part disappointment, and part sarcastic, laid her own experience on the table, so to speak.

"The most travel I've ever done outside of Kanto, Hoenn, Johto, or Sinnoh was as a guest lecturer with a few study abroad programs to fill out my foreign language requirements."

"Well aside from the obvious bonuses of getting three square meals and a hot shower every day, what else would you say fit into the Pros Column for that kind of travel?" Sara asked.

"First and foremost was that I NEVER had to pick up the check, as that was handled by the universities who invited me to speak for them. Then there was the fact that my transportation was always arranged by someone else, and I got introduced to some of the best and brightest people in their field. It was almost like being some kind of secret celebrity at a convention full of nerds, but it was entertaining, so who cares?" Kelly asked, laying on the sarcasm thicker and heavier as she went, drawing a laugh from her three companions.

"And she was also probably put up in hotels, where they have nice soft beds and 24-hour coffee shops right down the street..." Sara trailed off, glancing in May's direction. The young coordinator knew a hint when she saw one.

"Not to mention she probably had a reasonable amount of spare time to herself when she wasn't in the lecture hall to read, sightsee, and collect souvenirs. Certainly more free time than a coordinator does between contests on the road to the Grand Festival..." May trailed off, clearly staring at Tate with an expectant gaze as Kelly flushed slightly under the newly-formed trio's scrutiny.

"_How did May know I was a souvenir-hound?!"_ Kelly asked herself right as Tate spoke up.

"And I KNOW that professors don't have to worry about floating away while they're asleep, unless of course they're trying out for a part in the next _Exorcist_ film," Tate began, "Yeah, nothing sucks like getting beaned in the face with a clipboard the second you wake up. Never had to worry about that down here on _Terra Firma_," he continued.

"You think you got it bad? Ask Leo how we met one day, has HE got stories," Sara replied after an almost comical snort.

"And that's why 'down here' is where I like to be. Like Casey Kasem once said 'feet on the ground and reaching for the stars'," Kelly said, nodding her head sagely as she took what could only pass as a 'dignified' sip from her cocoa.

"I'll second you on that one Kelly. Space and the wild are fun on occasion, but it takes someone with more guts than I have to make going to those kinds of places their job. Give me a warm bed at a Pokémon Center any day," May echoed the LCU professor's sentiment.

"Precisely; more power to those who can do it, but my lot in life is a great one and I'll be damned if I trade it in anytime within—oh, the next HUNDRED stinkin' years!" Kelly continued.

"You two are no fun..." Sara said with an expression that was as close to that of a kicked puppy that Kelly had ever seen the older woman manage.

"Your definition of fun is warped. What about just relaxing in a hammock? Enjoying a fresh glass of iced tea, planting a garden or even cuddling up by a fireplace? I know your brain might say 'boring' but at the same time, your heart's fluttering right now," May firmly objected, playing off a hunch that she had. Sara might act like a typical tough-girl tomboy, but she'd seen how she acted around Leo and had come to the as-yet-to-be-confirmed conclusion that verbal sparring was Sara's way of having fun.

Sara's only response was to plant her left elbow onto her knee and place her chin firmly in the palm of her hand, exhaling slowly as she did so with an almost dreamy expression on her face.

"Guilty as charged, point eloquently made, and all that jazz. Although to answer your question: hammock, tea, and then cuddle, in that order. Not necessarily in front of a fireplace though, our sleeping bag isn't that fireproof," Sara admitted, grinning almost like a Cheshire cat as she did so.

"Well, at least her priorities are in some semblance of regular order," Kelly thought aloud, scratching her right temple as she felt a single drop of sweat slide down the left side of her face. What surprised Kelly more was May's response.

"There's hope for her yet Kelly!" May said, as if she were some heroine attempting to inspire a group of followers.

"_Oh what the hell, why not?_" Kelly thought to herself as she continued the ruse.

"Let's continue to hold out hope for one Sara Smalls! She's not a lost cause as of yet!" Kelly proclaimed almost loudly enough for her voice to carry beyond the bonfire.

"_Why do the words __**Amelia**__ and __**Seyruun**__ immediately pop into my head when those two do that?_" Tate thought to himself before shaking his head to clear the errant train of thought. The more he watched the two of them, the more Tate began to realize that there was something here that he hadn't been seeing before. Now if ONLY he could put his finger on it!

"Were you two always like this before?" Tate asked mildly, feigning amusement with the two young ladies' melodramatic antics.

The effect the question had on both May and Kelly was fairly pronounced as they both instantly dropped the melodrama. It was May that answered Tate's question.

"Not always. A lot's happened in the past year or so, at least for me anyway. Though most of the attention has died down, there was a pretty big scandal with my name on it some months before summer started. You might have seen it on the news, but I'd rather not talk about it. Needless to say, it's changed the way I think about the things that are important in my life and the people I'm willing to allow in it. Only time will tell how long it's going to take before things get back to 'normal' with me," May answered candidly.

Silence reigned as the fire crackled behind Tate while he absorbed all that he'd heard and seen. Much to his surprise, Kelly had watched May the entire time, as if she had already known the basics of what May was going to say. There was certainly sympathy in her gaze that Tate could see, but something he hadn't expected was the disappointment. Not the standard 'I knew you were going to fail' disappointment, but something that seemed far closer to the unique type of 'I'm sorry it didn't work out for you' disappointment.

"And you Kelly? How are you holding up?" Sara asked; her expression completely neutral. Kelly turned back towards Sara and Tate's eyes widened when some kind of mental wall slammed down behind her eyes. Tate wasn't certain what was going on here, but it was pretty clear that Kelly was in a boat similar to, if not in worse condition, than May.

"I'm...still in a holding pattern...Sara. I'm not sure...when I'll be able to put this behind me. It's...complicated," Kelly answered with difficulty, knowing that Sara and Leo still didn't know the full story and thus she had to guard her words until she felt she could address the problem.

_**Marina**_

The mere thought of her still sent a chill down her spine. She began to push the painful trains of thought back into the recesses of her mind with a proficiency born of practice. She hadn't been able to put a name to the emotion two years ago and that part of the situation had yet to change.

Another part, however, was about to change forever.

Before Kelly had realized it, she'd settled into a hundred-yard stare, quickly approaching a thousand-yard stare, when she felt two warm hands grip one of hers.

Turning her head to her side, Kelly would have been shocked at almost any other time to see May Maple's bare, ungloved hands silently gripping one of her own. As Kelly's gaze met May's, something passed between them. Neither knew nor quite frankly cared what it was at that time.

The only important thing that registered in May Maple's mind was that Kelly, the friend who was willing to go to bat for her no questions asked, was suffering. Maybe May wasn't able to heal her, or put all the pieces back together, but she'd be damned if she were going to let a friend as good as Kelly suffer by herself.

The only thing that managed to penetrate Kelly's hundred-yard stare was the warmth that was seeping into her emotionally shock-chilled hands and the calm, reassuring gaze meeting her own that should have been blatantly familiar if for no other reason than Kelly saw it every time she looked in a mirror.

It felt like one minute and one hour at the same time passed before Kelly seemingly returned to her senses, blushing slightly along with May as their hands separated and they tried to salvage what normalcy remained of the situation.

However, for at least one of those present, normalcy was something that had just been turned on its head and then thrown across the proverbial room.

Tate Cernan's understanding of the situation he had suddenly found himself in was tenuous at best. He'd sat down not all that long ago bound and determined to be a man about his feelings and let someone he genuinely cared about know that he wanted to see if there could ever be anything more significant between them.

While he'd found Kelly's behavior somewhat odd, he'd pressed forward, using what few social skills he had in regards to dating to guide the conversation towards the topic of romantic interests. One ill-spoken question had landed him in an emotional blender already spinning up to _**puree**_, where he had suddenly found himself very much in over his head and sorely lacking knowledge that would have been critical to know prior to walking into this conversation.

But one thing he knew couldn't do was pull the supposed 'veil' back over his eyes. What Kelly said, the way she'd reacted to May when she'd done something as simple as hold her hand. It was a simple truth really, but one that took his tentative dreams and affections and turned them to dust before scattering them to the four winds.

From the moment Kelly's eyes had met May's, his stomach had dropped into the ground and kept going all the way until it broke the sea floor of the Atlantic on the opposite side of the planet. There was no denying, at least to Tate Cernan, that Kelly Cruz-Marin had been referring to, what he assumed was a person who had admitted, at least to herself, that she was romantically interested in others of her own gender.

"_Well, what else is there to do?_" Tate thought to himself as he prepared to do the hardest thing he'd ever had to do in his life. He'd come here tonight with one thing in mind; tell Kelly Cruz-Marin how he felt about her. How he would have brought her the stars if it made her happy and done everything in his power to ensure she never wanted for anything that was in his power to give to her.

But it was not to be.

Gathering up what remained of his shaken will power, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, counting to ten as he did so while Kelly and May got their bearings back. He could cry later, he could mourn what never was and never would be in the privacy of his own bedroom in a few hours, but he refused to take the easy way out and give someone like his sister even more ammunition to use against him in the many years to come.

"Y-You alright there Kelly?" Tate was surprised when his voice only hitched a little.

"...Not really. Maybe ...hopefully...eventually..." Kelly trailed off, still careful to guard her thoughts and not let that hateful name come up again.

"_Now or never._" Tate thought.

"What you were talking about...a few minutes ago. It's a little odd for me to be honest," Tate said, doing his best not to think about the fact he'd never be able to be with her the way he had wanted to be.

"What...do you mean?" Kelly asked, her confusion clearing when the peculiar change of topic suddenly became focused on Tate.

"Back when you were still...at the center working on your thesis..." Tate trailed off.

"_This is where the hurt starts,_" Tate told himself.

"...I had a pretty big crush on you..." he admitted.

As the knife twisted in his chest and his stomach turned itself inside out, he barely registered the vague looks of shock from May and Kelly. Tate idly noted that Sara was still as a statue, just absorbing all that was happening around her.

"...Kinda awkward, huh?" he asked.

The significance of the wording finally registered in Kelly's brain and suddenly that accursed wall behind her eyes that had slammed into place before lifted a little.

"Yeah...a little, but you're over that now I take it?" Kelly replied in her no-nonsense tone. The same tone she used to dictate papers to a recorder and address students and colleagues.

Tate began to wonder if this pain would ever go away as he carefully maintained the mask that was keeping him from bursting into tears at the moment and offered the object of his affection a small grin.

"I'm getting there Kelly...though to be honest I have to admit that sometimes I'm still pretty damn tempted to call you up and ask you out to dinner," Tate answered honestly. The fact that he'd only started 'getting there' a handful of seconds ago was irrelevant.

To his amazement, the wall lifted further as Kelly offered him as warm a smile as she could manage.

"I know how hard it is to get over someone you care a lot for Tate. It's never easy and I have to say it's not gotten any easier since the day it happened. But if you're already on your way there, then you're a better person than me. Just don't give up hope that there IS someone out there for you. I had to learn that the hard way..."

Tate only nodded, no longer trusting his throat not to release the pent up anguish in his chest as he prepared for one final parting before he sought some kind of refuge until he could regain some control over himself.

"I think...I'm gonna go and make myself another cup..." Tate said, gesturing with his empty cocoa mug as he rose to his feet and headed back towards the picnic shelter, that Leo and Frank no longer occupied, much to Tate's growing relief, what little of it there was.

Sara Smalls drained her cup as well as Tate got to his feet and waited another few moments before putting her two cents in.

"I think I'll join him for another round, young ladies. I'll be back," Sara said as she began moving towards the 4Runner, her eyes automatically scanning for her boyfriend as she went.

Over by the telescope, Liza Cernan merely watched as her twin brother walked in the opposite direction, trying not to let it hurt quite so much that her own twin didn't seemingly trust her enough to seek her out for comfort. Then again, she'd never given him much indication that she'd offer him anything other than teasing, silence, or just simply acting as if things were completely normal when in fact they were far from it.

Liza wiped her arm across her tear-filling eyes in a motion that, unconsciously, mirrored her twin's actions at that very same moment as he prepared another cup of cocoa.

*****

Sara located Leo and Frank at the trailer, selecting pieces of firewood to add to the dwindling bonfire so that it would last a few more hours until sunrise. Approaching them while still maintaining a careful eye on Tate, she tapped Leo on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow her towards the front of the vehicle, which her lover responded to with only a nod.

"Hey Frank, me and Sara need a second. I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?" he asked.

Frank's response was to smile a little and nod as well as he continued to dig through the remaining pile of firewood to find suitably smaller pieces than were currently within his reach.

Upon walking to the front of the 4Runner, Sara proceeded to steal a few kisses from her man for a brief moment before remembering why she was here. Laying her head against his chest, she gently leaned into Leo as she gestured with her hand for him to look back towards the shelter.

Leo caught her drift and glanced in that direction to see Tate walking towards the tree line; his mug steaming with what must have been another cup of hot chocolate.

"What about him?" Leo asked, sensing that young Tate Cernan was the reason for their current conversation.

"He just admitted he used to have a crush on Kelly after watching her and May talk about their love lives. Turns out I was closer to the truth about those two than I originally thought, but it would seem like I need to go do some damage control with Tate over there. He did a good job of not showing it, but I imagine he's pretty broken up over it. He seemed to really care about Kelly..." Sara explained.

"I gotcha," Leo replied, his gaze even and understanding of the situation as he'd faced that situation at around the same age, though not with the complications of having HIS crush rejecting him due to her being gay.

"Go to work then, I'm sure he'll appreciate it someday, even if he doesn't say anything about it tonight."

"I know Leo. If I'm not back in an hour," Sara began, kissing him firmly as she wrapped her arms around his neck, reveling in the smell of smoke, wood, and earth that seemed to permeate Leo's body at the moment.

"...Just wait longer," Sara finished, grinning as she did so.

"Whatever you say Smalls; if you need anything, send Kurt after me," Leo replied, referring to his Espeon.

"Will do, but I doubt it; we've both been there before," Sara said, nuzzling her face into Leo's neck for a moment before parting from her boyfriend with a smile and walking in the general direction she'd seen Tate leave.

Leo merely nodded as he returned her smile and headed back towards the trailer to help Frank move the firewood onto the fire.

*****

Sara found Tate not more than thirty feet beyond the tree line in the woods with his Solrock sitting beside him, making an obvious attempt to comfort its Trainer's apparent anguish as Tate just suppressed his sobs and did his best to let his tears fall silently. A few other Pokémon had noticed Tate's distress and Sara nodded towards Kurt, who was keeping an eye on the young Cernan from behind another tree about ten feet away.

Sara waited another few minutes to let Tate have a little time to grieve to himself before she closed the final distance between them, making sure to be noisy enough about it to alert Tate to her presence. Just as she rounded the tree she'd seen him sitting behind, she saw him wipe his eyes and attempt to clear his congested sinuses before glancing up towards her.

"Miss Sara?" Tate asked, uncertain as to why she might have followed him.

"That was very brave of you Tate...telling Kelly what you did," Sara began, sitting down with her own second cup of cocoa that she'd grabbed from the shelter before pursing Tate. The young teenager merely allowed more silent tears to fall, not trusting himself to speak at the moment.

"I know it must have been very hard for you to do that. It's probably one of the most painful experiences a person can ever endure ... having to let go of something that they really want for the rest of their lives," Sara continued as Tate choked back a sob. Sara moved a little closer and started rubbing his back in what she hoped was a soothing manner to the unfortunate young man.

"It...it just...SUCKS..." Tate began, "...who's to say that...I couldn't have loved her better than anyone else could?" he asked.

"I know _exactly_ what you mean," Sara confided, her own gaze shifting towards the ground with a slightly faraway look in her eye. The admission and the movement caught Tate's notice and for a brief moment, he dried his eyes and shifted his focus to Sara. He didn't like watching girls in any kind of pain, not even his sister though she annoyed him more often than not.

"Really?" Tate asked, wondering how a girl in such a loving relationship with a great guy could possibly know what he was going through.

"Yeah, and I have to tell you that if something's not meant to happen on some level, then I daresay that it never will, no matter how hard you might try," Sara continued, glancing back into Tate's eyes. Although her eyes were slightly watery, it was clear that whatever pain she'd suffered had been healed to a great extent because of the relationship she currently shared with her boyfriend.

"It's not FAIR...I mean...I never had a chance. Right when I decide to make a move...this comes outta left field and...it's like I'm nothing to Kelly...she didn't even bat an eye when I told her that...I had a crush on her. I wasn't even her friend...at least not in her eyes..." Tate said with difficulty.

"It's rarely that easy Tate. You're thinking in terms of black and white there; either she loves you or you don't exist in her world. The truth is that she does value your friendship and all the help you've given her since you two met. She just has a lot of stuff to think about right now and unfortunately while you are her friend, you're not the friend she needs right now," Sara explained.

"But why can't she let me prove that I _could_ be?" Tate asked; his demeanor calming down as the two of them continued to talk.

"I think you know the reason why..." Sara replied, letting her sentence trail off and allowing Tate to come to the obvious conclusion.

"...Because I'm not the person she WANTS to understand her and comfort her," Tate said, arriving at Sara's point, even if it didn't bring him any sort of peace or comfort.

Something about the young man's situation pulled on Sara's heartstrings enough that she came to a decision that would hopefully help Tate to realize something far more important than just the point she'd been trying to make.

"You wanna know something?" she asked.

"What?" Tate asked half-heartedly.

"I was in your position once, a few years before I met Leo which was just over nine years ago now, when I was just a little older than you are now," Sara began, renewing Tate's interest in her story quite dramatically as his eyes easily tripled in size at this revelation.

"What happened?" Tate asked, paying close attention.

"I met a guy who was everything I thought I'd ever wanted in a guy...but no matter how hard I tried to prove to him that I could make him happy...his heart wasn't mine to protect. He'd already given it away to someone else," Sara continued, sipping her drink as she went.

"Took me over a year to realize that the battle I was fighting was a hopeless one. No matter how hard I fought, he never even acknowledged it was taking place," Sara's eyes watered as she remembered those times when she'd been futilely doing everything she could to get Alan's attention; to make him see her as a woman and not just as some teenager who knew how to take the best damn pictures money could buy.

"Even though he was the one I loved and wanted to be with for the rest of my life, it wasn't meant to be. It was like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole; it simply never would have worked, despite my thinking to the contrary."

"But how am I supposed to know who's the one for me? How did you know Leo was the guy for you after something as painful as that happened to you?" Tate asked.

"Because Leo might not be everything I wanted, but he was—no. He IS...everything I'll ever need. I knew that, deep down, the moment he came crashing into my life, facing down a pissed-off mother Ursaring without so much as a by-my-leave that he would always be there for me as long as he still lived, whether I liked it or not."

Tate continued to listen to with rapt attention, almost afraid to interrupt Sara.

"For the longest time, I couldn't admit that, even to myself. But after we'd known each other long enough, I finally admitted that come what may, I couldn't imagine waking up one day and NOT having him in my life. Then I imagined something worse; what if some OTHER girl came along and stole him out from under my nose...and history repeated itself in my life because I was too afraid to let go of what I wanted in favor of what I knew that I NEEDED," Sara explained, shivering at the thought that had haunted her for many months before she and Leo had told each other the truth about how they felt for each other.

"So you see Tate," Sara began, rubbing her eyes carefully, "what we might WANT isn't always what we need in life to obtain happiness. Yeah, I had to give up my first love after fighting for him for so long, but I wouldn't trade a minute of the time Leo and I have had together for anything in the world. So I say to you that maybe Kelly wasn't the person you NEEDED, because I think the biggest shame of all in life is getting something you wanted, only for the thing you NEEDED to come into your life and leave you unable to claim it," Sara said.

"Because I know without a shadow of a doubt that if I had lost Leo to some other girl because I was too stupid to let go of what I wanted, it would have broken me for the rest of my life. I might have wanted Alan, but I NEED Leo like I NEED air to breathe," Sara finished, taking a sip of her cocoa.

Tate was staggered by Sara's insight on his current situation. Even though the fact that he would never be with Kelly still hurt, it seemed significantly less now that he'd heard Sara's story. As he sipped from his own mug, he thought about everything Sara had said. She'd made several good points and for what it was worth, he'd appreciated her taking the time to come and talk with him.

"Thanks Miss Sara. I think I understand things a little better now. It just...doesn't change how I feel all that much right NOW..." Tate explained, hoping he hadn't just thrown Sara's words back in her face.

"I know it doesn't Tate. Like you said back at the fire, it's something you're going to have to work towards," Sara replied, getting up as she did so, "letting go of someone you care a great deal about takes time. The key to moving past this experience is never losing hope that someone who WILL make you happy IS out there, waiting for you to find them. Also, you can never know when you'll come across them, so it's best to keep your eyes peeled and your heart open. IF you keep those two things in mind, I reckon you'll do just fine," Sara finished, offering Tate her hand to help him up, which the young astronomer/astronaut accepted.

"So, are you about ready to head back? The eclipse should be starting soon, right?" Sara asked.

Tate skulled the last of his cocoa and merely nodded his head. While he certainly wasn't on top of the world right now, he was doing much better than he was just a little while ago. The rest he'd deal with when the time came as he and Sara walked back towards Camp Hogan.

"By the way...if you don't mind my asking, Miss Sara?"

"Hmm? What is it Tate?"

"How did you...seem to know that Kelly was...you know?" Tate asked, genuinely curious to see if there had been any clues that he'd missed seeing ever since he'd known Kelly.

Sara's eyes widened marginally and a grin found its way to her face.

"She looks at me quite frequently in certain situations or when she thinks I'm unawares…not to mention she's a fan of hot springs..." Sara replied, letting her sentence trail off intentionally.

Tate's eyes nearly bugged out of his head at the implications as he tried to string his next sentence together, "So s-she's...s-seen you in the...b-b-buff?" Tate could swear he felt his face grow hot enough to make him look like a tomato.

"Oh certainly...it's hard to stop that girl sometimes," Sara replied with an even wider grin on her face as she and Tate broke through the tree line and continued back towards the picnic shelter.

"HEY EVERYONE! IT'S TIME! THE ECLIPSE IS STARTING!" Liza shouted for all to hear, prompting Sara and Tate to take off towards the telescope and the open sky beyond the picnic shelter and bonfire.


	4. Chapter 4

**Act Four**

*****

Sunday

August 17, 2008

04:57 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

Silence had descended upon Camp Hogan as the ten people present gather near the Cernan's telescope while the twins zeroed their instrument in on the best position to watch the near-total eclipse take place. According to astronomy data available to them, they had estimated that the eclipse would last around fifty minutes and cover roughly seventy-five to eighty percent of the lunar landscape.

Being the intrepid explorers that they were, Leo and Sara had passed out a few pairs of binoculars so that more than one person could observe the eclipse by some means other than through the naked eye or the small telescope. After handing out their trusty field glasses, Leo and Sara relocated a few camp chairs so that they weren't far from the group, but could have a modicum of privacy. The reason for this was clear soon enough as Sara pulled out a warm weather sleeping bag and unzipped it completely, forming a fairly large throw quilt before she literally climbed into Leo's lap and tucked the sleeping bag's edges securely around them. Eventually Sara twisted around so that she could also watch the eclipse with her head securely resting on Leo's shoulder.

Having remained seated for most of the evening, Frank and Cass each opted to simply don a lightweight jacket and stand near the rest of the group, Frank's arms wrapped securely around his wife's midsection from behind.

Watching everyone from a little farther back, Kelly and May had opted to stay near the rekindled fire to stay warm and simply turned their chairs around to face away from the fire towards the group. Besides, after the conversation where Tate had unknowingly brought up some bad memories for both of them, neither really felt up to participating in the telescope viewing.

Each of the young women was lost to their own thoughts as they idly watched a shadow begin forming over part of the moon's surface.

May thought about the eclipse itself and why exactly she'd come here for something that, while rare, wasn't something that highly interested her. Originally, the invitation that Kelly had sent her mentioned nothing of an anniversary party, only that there would be some 'others' present. So she'd been pleasantly surprised to find out that another reason the party was being held was to celebrate the anniversary between two of Kelly's closest colleagues.

Because when she really thought about it, even she had to admit that seeing the eclipse wasn't the main reason why she came to Lilycove this weekend, but for the company and fellowship of good friends, both new and old. Sneaking a glance at Kelly out of the corner of her vision, she felt glad to be a part of something like this as opposed to staying at home all weekend and moping around. Her friend had done her a tremendous favor, because even in the aftermath of the dredged-up memories, she felt infinitely better for making the trip to Lilycove, though she couldn't yet put her finger on WHY exactly.

A few minutes later, Kelly glanced discretely at her guest before returning her gaze to the darkening moonscape, wondering for the hundredth time if she'd made a mistake in inviting May along for this party. It had been a total shot in the dark and due to a multitude of reasons, she was really no closer to finding out some of the answers to her many questions than she was a few days ago. The important thing to remember however was that as long as she corrected the mistake she made so many years ago and kept in touch with May this time around was that there WOULD be other times like this.

Times where both of them could sit, talk, and just be normal people for a change. While Kelly was certainly impressed with May's achievements thus far and fully believed that she would recover her place in the spotlight, Kelly had never really seen May as some superstar that was meant to be worshipped or put on a pedestal. Instead, Kelly knew that what May really appreciated were the fans that treated her like she was just another coordinator.

Sure it was nice to have the recognition of being one of the top coordinators in the sport today, but May typically only put on the showman's hat when she walked into a contest hall or the Grand Festival. When the contest and competition were done, she checked her hat at the door on the way back out into the real world and considered herself just another participant in the popular sport of coordinating.

Both May and Kelly heard a soft murmuring of voices carried to them on a small whiff of wind from off to their right. At almost the exact same time, the two looked towards Leo Stroud and Sara Smalls, who for all appearances were snug as a couple of bugs in a rug. Neither of them could tear their gaze away from the happy young couple as the two shared a series of small kisses and whispered affections that were for their ears alone as their voices didn't carry enough to allow either of them to make out exactly what was being said.

"Leo and Sara really do love each other, huh?" May thought aloud in a tone that was almost wistful, breaking the silence that had settled between the two of them.

"That much is obvious, though I have to thank our lucky stars that those two don't ooze happiness from every pore. They're fairly discrete when they get downright mushy, otherwise watching them would be like eating a batch of high fructose corn syrup straight from a bucket in a candy shop," Kelly replied.

May had the decency to blush as she distinctly remembered attempting just that on one occasion while she was still traveling with Ash, Brock, and Max. After a minute or two to let her face return to its normal color, she continued on.

"Hey Kelly...what would your perfect day be like?" May asked, her gaze initially on Leo and Sara before shifting to her friend, whose eyes were already on her.

Kelly seemed to understand where the question was coming from, and with a small grin on her face, gave the question some serious thought.

"My perfect day would be on a Wednesday. My lover and I would rise with the sun and we'd cook breakfast together. No kids yet to interrupt us and the only class for the day not until mid-afternoon. We'd go do something for exercise to get our blood going before heading out to do whatever errands we had to for the day. After those are done, we'd find something totally random to do until lunch, even if neither of us knew what we were doing. It wouldn't matter because we'd be doing it together. We'd go to this outdoor café I know really well for lunch and spend time just being together, talking about whatever. Then we'd part ways and I would head to the University, teach the class with a minimum of smart-alecky comments about my age. After I've dismissed my students, I come home to find dinner on the table, even if it's nothing but a pair of sub sandwiches. My lover and I go out to the balcony and cuddle for a while until the sun sets since it's the perfect temperature outside. After that we go inside and make love until we can't even move except to breathe. After we change the sheets, we fall asleep in each other's arms, never more comfortable in our lives," Kelly says, her eyes far off and wistful, as if she's pictured just that many times before.

"Why on a Wednesday?" May asks, genuinely curious.

Kelly merely shrugs. "Because if I had my way, I'd have 52 of those days a year," she answered.

"That does sound nice," May replied, waiting to see what Kelly would do next. After a few minutes of silence, May turned her gaze back to her friend.

"Aren't you going to ask me about my perfect day?" May asked, a small grin adorning her face.

"Eh, we can always talk about that next time. Don't mind me, I'm just reveling in my perfect day," Kelly replied.

As May looked back towards Leo and Sara, who hadn't moved so much as an inch during Kelly's lengthy monologue, she thought about what Kelly had listed as her perfect day and a thought that had struck her almost immediately after Kelly finished came to the forefront as she thought about how Leo or Sara might respond to such a question.

"Why wouldn't you go anywhere special Kelly? If it were Leo and Sara, they might do something fantastic like go to Tokyo, Toronto, or even Wellington. Are you sure you wouldn't want to go somewhere you'd never been before?" May asked again.

"Because to me, it wouldn't matter WHERE we went; my lover would understand that it's the intangibles that are important to me. Sure we'd go on vacations when the mood struck us, but the reason that's my perfect day is because I would spend as much of it with the person I loved as I possibly could. Everyone on the planet is born with the exact same number of hours in every day, and I don't see how a different location would make the fact that I was spending time with the person I love any more or less enjoyable," Kelly explained.

"Hmm. I thought so...I just wanted to hear you say it. It seems like your priorities are ALSO in some regular semblance of order, Kelly Cruz-Marin."

"What can I say, I do the best I can with what I've been given."

May's gaze drifted back to the eclipse as her thoughts turned back towards an honest question that she'd asked herself months ago, even if she hadn't had the wording for it that she did today.

"_Why couldn't Drew have thought more like that?_"

She distinctly remembered Drew's many gifts of roses, boxed candies, and any number of other trinkets that he'd given her over the course of their relationship, as if they would endear her to him by their sentimentality alone. Now that she thought about it, giving gifts was often Drew's way of making up for the fact that he wasn't there for her most of the time. And Kelly had made a startlingly good point; everyone in the world had the same amount of time in a day, the only difference amongst people was how they utilized it.

May could count on two hands the number of days that she and Drew had spent that much time together over the course of their relationship, and it almost made her mad that despite him being her boyfriend, that he seemed more interested in things NOT pertaining to their relationship once they had supposedly committed to each other. In stark contrast, Kelly it seemed would have gone out of her way to make certain that at least one day a week would be spent with the person she loved most, no excuses.

Meanwhile, in May's silence, Kelly's thoughts had been anything but idle.

Without intending to, Kelly's trains of thought were not unlike May's. Her relationship with _that woman_, whom she _refused_ to name any longer, had been a whirlwind of feelings that she hadn't understood at the time, being fresh out of the closet with someone expressing a seemingly genuine romantic interest in her. For a young girl who'd only recently discovered her own atypical sexual orientation, that had been very appealing, almost as if the creators themselves had given her a godsend in human form.

However, the truth eventually came forth and _that woman_ left her without any explanation whatsoever and only the barest of ideas as to what Kelly might or might not have done that made her pack up and walk out of her life just as quickly as she'd come into it. Emotionally catastrophic devastation was what followed in the wake of that incident, and it took Kelly almost a year to get back to the point where she could even talk sensibly to any girl she either found attractive or bore some kind of resemblance to _that woman_. _She_ had simply shown up, said the right things, at the right times, during the right situations to do whatever it was she'd truly been in Lilycove to do. Kelly still couldn't bear the thought of admitting the most obvious solution out loud because it would simply hurt too much to think such a thing.

There was no way she would ever have had to worry about such things in her present company. May was one of the single most selfless individuals she had ever met and generally made friends everywhere she went, with a few notable exceptions such as that green-with-envy rival coordinator who happened to have the same color of hair as she did. May didn't always have the right approach to everything, but that didn't stop her from following her heart and doing what was right even when it wasn't convenient.

May's thoughts drifted back towards Kelly and what she had said only hours ago;

"_**...and besides, until the day comes when you find that person you're going to spend the rest of your life with, I'll be here for you...**_**"**

To the best of May's knowledge, she and Kelly were walking on similar paths running almost parallel to each other. There was an understanding between them now that hadn't been there when the two of them first met. Both of them were older and wiser, but also more jaded.

In a moment of completely random imagination, May envisioned Kelly and herself walking along different paths on a moonlit night much like this one, with the paths running side-by-side, but never really meeting unless one of them was willing to take a risk and forge a path to the other through a bit of dense forest. Of course, seeing someone break through the foliage and appear on the same path as you were by choice would certainly startle the person who hadn't been as willing to take such a risk. The question inevitably arose;

_Why should two people walk two separate paths leading to a similar destination alone, when you could just as easily walk together?_

May glanced back towards her friend, taking her imaginative thought to heart, and asked herself a pivotal question.

"_Would it really be so bad to take that risk? After all, the two paths may never meet. Our paths might even separate again, never to rejoin, and the opportunity would be lost. Would it really be so bad to take a risk if it meant walking the same path as her?_"

May knew that Kelly was suffering just as much, if not more so than herself. And despite all that hardship...

"**...**_**I'll be here for you...**_**"**

May's imagination grasped onto that memory and the vision shifted.

"_Aren't we already here tonight? Our paths aren't running parallel anymore, they've intersected!_" The realization brought May up short. Her eyes widened marginally as she asked herself a question that would change everything.

"_Can I really do any less than be there for her like she's being here for me?_"

May Maple didn't even have to think about it, because somewhere along the way, the decision had already been made.

Looking back towards Kelly, she did a quick sweep of the camp, noting that the eclipse was probably about halfway over, maybe even a little more than halfway if she squinted real hard. But she could easily see that no one was currently looking in their direction. Twisting in her chair, she turned to face Kelly, carefully scooting the chair just a little bit closer so as not to draw any attention.

"Kelly?" May asked quietly.

Kelly snapped out of her own thoughts to see May sitting closer than she remembered. That minor detail flew out the window however when May continued.

"Do you trust me?" She asked.

Kelly was stunned speechless by both the question itself along with the calm, steely look she saw in May's eyes. It was a few seconds before she could form a response. Kelly didn't notice the slight tremble that appeared in her hands.

"I...y-yes, of course I do May."

Nodding at the affirmative, May said, "You told me earlier tonight that you'd be there for me until I found the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I've thought about it, and I want you to know that I now consider that to go both ways between us Kelly."

"May...I..." Kelly could barely form words through the shock. Her right eye twitched at the ever-growing resemblance that her mind's eye was beginning to piece together as May once again took one of Kelly's hands in both of her own.

May's gaze shifted to the ground as she braced herself for the inevitable risk she was about to take with her next statement. "I think we're walking along a couple of paths that have just come together. I...I'd like to walk down this next path with you Kelly...if you'll have me..." May trailed off as she lifted her eyes to meet Kelly's once more.

The resemblance to _that woman_ in Kelly's mind was shattered. There was an innocent yearning in May's eyes now, and a softness that hadn't been there moments ago. _That woman_ hadn't bothered asking for her permission on several things, she'd simply led Kelly into doing whatever it was _she_ wanted to do, regardless of the consequences.

By some stroke of Fate, the two young women had the exact same thought at nearly the exact same time.

"_I don't want to hurt her..._" May began.

"_...but I don't want to lose her either._" Kelly finished.

"I...I think that...yes, May. You can...walk with me. But...I didn't think..."

Kelly fell silent as May put a finger to her lips.

"We can talk about that another time Kelly. All I want is to be here at your side whenever you might need me. The rest can wait," May replied with the warmest look on her face that Kelly had ever witnessed.

As if Kelly's heart wasn't already pounding against her rib cage, May gently placed her left index and middle finger on one side of her chin and her thumb on the other, gently guiding Kelly forward just a bit...

"_N-No...No way!_" Kelly thought to herself as her whole body began to tremble slightly.

And then May pressed a feather-light kiss on Kelly's left cheek.

Kelly's cheeks flushed a good bit as May backed off slightly. And just when Kelly thought the worst of it was over, May closed her eyes slowly and moved forward again as Kelly's breath hitched in her throat right before May planted a kiss on Kelly's lips that was just a bit firmer than the one on her cheek.

For Kelly, it was like a dream and a nightmare at exactly the same time. So many dreams fulfilled and yet so many unknown factors still unresolved that could potentially go wrong. A dream because for one moment, Kelly was certain this was as close to heaven as she'd ever been and a nightmare because it would be so easy for something as fragile as this moment to be destroyed beyond any hope of repair or recurrence.

As the two drifted apart after the brief kiss, May's outstretched left hand still hung in the air between them, as if frozen in time. Her face still had that warm look, but appeared puzzled at the same time. Kelly's fear returned in full force in that brief instance, as if she could almost see _that woman's_ face superimposed over May's.

"I...have no idea...why I did that," May thought aloud.

Kelly could have sworn she felt her heart come to a dead stop then and there.

"But I...kinda liked it..." May continued thoughtfully, her left hand touching her own lips as she did so with that warm expression returning to its full intensity.

Kelly's heart contracted sharply and she let go of a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding.

By some unspoken mutual agreement, the two young women returned to their normal seated positions, this time in almost perfect unison as Kelly did her best to overcome the shock to her system and May continued to ponder about why she suddenly felt lighter than air.

Neither of them noticed Cassandra Hogan's gaze turn back towards the eclipse with a concerned expression on her face.

*****

Sunday

August 17, 2008

07:13 HST

_Adam's Homestead Camp Grounds_

Even with all the preparations that Leo and Sara had made regarding packing up the vehicles early, it still took a little more than an hour for them to collect all of their gear, strap it all in, recall their Pokémon, and make certain that the campsite was in just as good of a condition as they had found it.

These efforts were aided greatly when the sun began to peek over the horizon at the official start of Sunday morning for the majority of Lilycove City. Everyone was in agreement that after an all-night vigil for the eclipse that everyone was unanimously planning on returning home to get some much needed rest before they had to return to their normal, everyday lives on Monday.

In the middle of all of this activity, Kelly was essentially running on autopilot as she helped Leo pack up the 4Runner while Sara, May, and the Cernan twins surveyed the camp site one final time to make certain that they'd left it as undisturbed as they had found it. For the most part, she had just been following orders, praying for the moment when Leo and Frank would call for everyone to load up into the cars so they could make like a bunch of trees and leave.

Just when Kelly could see Leo closing up the 4Runner, she felt someone place their hand on her shoulder and turn her to face them gently. To her surprise, it was none other than Cassandra Hogan who stood beside her.

"Kelly, might I have a moment of your time before we part ways?" Cass asked.

"Sure thing Mrs. H; did you enjoy the party?"

"Yes young lady, we did. It was wonderful to come out and just hang out by the campfire again after so many years and Frank and I are very grateful that you put it all together for us," Cass replied.

"Aw, it was nothing. Least I could do for everything you two helped me with when I first got hired."

"I understand, but that was not what I wanted to discuss with you," Cass began, now that the two of them were a sufficient distance away from everyone else where they wouldn't be overheard.

"Then what is it you wanna talk about?" Kelly asked, wondering what else needed to said after a night like last night.

"I don't know how to say this any plainer than how I am right now, so I'm not even going to try. I saw what happened between you and May _during_ the eclipse," Cass explained.

Kelly instantly turned white as a sheet, her facial expression going blank in the process. While it certainly hadn't been as bad as her potential panic attack last night, Kelly was a far cry away from calling this development anything remotely resembling 'good'.

"Not to worry Kelly. I haven't told anyone, not even Frank yet. I just wanted to make a few things clear before life got hectic on us again and we didn't get a chance to talk for a while."

"Okay Cass, I'm listening," Kelly said, almost looking like a child about to be chastised by a parent.

"I know your family has Catholic roots Kelly, so I'm assuming you know exactly the type of reaction that might come about as a result of anyone religious enough seeing what I saw last night?"

"Yeah, I came out of the closet about two years ago to my parents, so they're not an issue," Kelly replied.

"Okay, now I wanna make sure you understand that if you ever need someone to talk to, then both Frank and I would be willing to listen. Even if we might not understand your decisions, it's not our choice or judgment to make regarding you and anyone you're...seeing," Cass continued.

"And finally, if she ever gives you any trouble, or for that matter if ANYONE ever gives you trouble; feel free to call on us. We've still got a few friends in the right places to make sure no one ever bothers you."

"_I'm afraid it's too little, too late, for that Cass. But thanks for offering just the same,_" Kelly thought to herself.

"I'm sure May would never hurt me if she could help it, but I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Thanks Cass, I appreciate whatever support you're willing to give me," Kelly replied.

"We know young lady, we know," Cass said as she pulled Kelly into a brief hug before they heard Frank and Leo begin shouting.

"Alright Everyone! Mount up! I got a nice comfy bed at home with MY name on it!" Frank shouted.

After glancing back into the sky and still seeing the moon above, Leo tossed in his own line.

"Gentlemen, Ladies; we're burnin' moonshine here!"

It took Leo all of half a second to realize what he'd just said and slapped the palm of one hand into his forehead as Frank, Cass, and Sara just started busting out laughing while everyone else present either did their best to hide their amusement or they just plain didn't get it.

"It's times like THESE that make me thank the creators for the EDITING ROOM..." Leo thought aloud, drawing an even louder and very unladylike guffaw from Sara.

After another ten minutes, all passengers were accounted for and both vehicles pulled out of the campgrounds to begin the trek back to civilization.

*****

Monday

August 18, 2008

07:23 HST

_Yorktown Flats_; Apartment 635 – Lilycove City

Due to the fact that May and Kelly both collapsed from exhaustion the previous day once Leo and Sara dropped them off and made sure they made it to their apartment, May ended up putting in a call to her parents on Sunday evening after she and Kelly finally woke up and told them that she'd be leaving for Petalburg City on Monday morning so she wouldn't be riding her bike after dark. Not only that, but due to how sore she ended up on the way to Lilycove, she decided to have a layover in Mauville City on Monday night and had hoped to roll into Petalburg sometime on Tuesday evening.

Her parents approved of May's decision and told her that it didn't really matter that she was going to be a day or so behind what she told them initially, so long as she arrived home safely.

After hanging up the phone on Sunday night, May proceeded to the kitchen where Kelly was currently heating up a plate of leftovers for both of them with her only real response to May's unvoiced inquiry was to motion towards the dining room table, indicating that she would bring both plates of the leftover shrimp with Bok Choy noodles over once she was finished.

Being too tired to really argue with Kelly's logic on Sunday evening, May merely grabbed one of the open jugs of juice from the refrigerator and a couple of glasses before making her way to the table before pouring two glasses and tentatively sipping her own. Upon discovering that said juice was suitable to her tastes, May took a few more swallows and then filled her glass again right about the time that Kelly set one of the plates in front of her guest and then went back for her own.

If either of the young women had been conscious enough to look upon their situation from the outside-in, then it likely would have embarrassed both of them to a significant degree granted that neither of them could seem to stifle any yawn that made its way to their faces or eat with any sense beyond the mere instinct of systematically chewing and swallowing food to assuage the pair of beasts that loudly protested against their lying in bed for almost the entire day.

It would also have surprised both girls a great deal to realize that they hadn't really spoken since 'that moment' as both of them would come to call it for quite some time. Taking into account the sheer exhaustion running through their bodies however, any surprise that the two ladies might have endured was understandably muted. After sleepily exchanging another set of 'good nights', the two returned to bed and slept clear through the night until Kelly's alarm woke them both up around two hours ago so that they could prepare for their respective days.

Now that Sunday's exhaustion had been remedied with over eighteen hours of sleep, the two friends were enjoying an early breakfast of Eggs Benedict, toast, and tea before they had to part ways and return to their normal lives. After finishing her own triple portion in true May Maple Style, Kelly's guest engaged in several random stretches, each accompanied by a series of groans that sounded more likely to emerge from the throat of a strangled alley cat.

"Oh, YEAH! That hit the spot!" May thought aloud, rubbing her tummy in complete satisfaction.

"Was the Yoga routine really necessary May?" Kelly asked with one eyebrow raised in a supremely smug manner.

"I thought so...I'm still a bit sore from the ride up," May admitted as she experimentally went through a few range-of-motion exercises to see if she had regained full mobility.

"I was referring to that lovely concerto you performed WHILE stretching," Kelly continued, her smug look dimming some into genuine amusement.

"Oh...sorry, but even you have to admit that sometimes a good stretch can absolutely make your toes curl, you know?" May countered.

Finding absolutely nothing inappropriate in May's observation, Kelly chuckled.

"That is true, I will admit. My 'inner-stretcher' seems to have been falling down on the job for quite a while...I hardly ever think to stretch anymore..." Kelly trailed off. There were a multitude of reasons for this shortcoming, but Kelly was nowhere near ready to discuss them with present company.

"Well, that's something you'll know to remedy now, isn't it?" May asked, her tone conveying she was pleased to make the observation and perhaps improve Kelly's day, even if only a little.

Silence fell between the two young women as they idly sipped their tea, neither of them wishing nor wanting to immediately break the companionable quiet that had settled into the room. It took a few minutes for Kelly to finally come to the realization that May was about to walk out her front door in a matter of minutes and there was no telling when they'd see each other again.

For all she knew it was going to be weeks, maybe even months. Kelly all too suddenly recognized that for all her plans and intentions to find out a few things about May's potential as a love interest, she hadn't actually made any progress whatsoever. Sure May had..._kissed_ her...but there was no telling if May would wake up one day soon, decide that that one moment was somehow a mistake, call her up, and then proceed to apologize for the action and promise for it to never happen again.

That phone call would likely wound Kelly a great deal, because there was no way that Kelly would risk admitting to May _over the phone_ that she was attracted to her on so many levels. If there was one thing Kelly Cruz-Marin knew without a shadow of a doubt in her heart, it was that love isn't born between two people over a telephone line. It can be maintained certainly, but never established, at least not nearly as firmly as a face-to-face admission. It makes it that much more real for the two people to see it in person, that much harder to deny or pretend that it doesn't exist.

Seeing that she was getting a bit ahead of herself, Kelly drew her wandering train of thought back to the present and used that potential scenario to galvanize her will for what was about to happen. May had taken a huge risk last night, especially with the kiss. It seemed only fair that Kelly return the favor. Maybe she wasn't ready to tell May EVERYTHING, but she could certainly open the door a little and let May see enough for her to understand that Kelly might be worth the risk, that it wasn't some random mistake...

"_Carpe Diem..."_ Kelly thought to herself.

"I wasn't kidding you know..." Kelly said, sipping lightly at her tea.

"Hmm?" May looks up to meet Kelly's eyes, her expression curious.

"About knowing what it's like to have to let go of someone you care about a lot," Kelly continued, her stomach tightening as she could no longer take back what had been said.

"When did you date someone? If you don't mind my asking..." May replies, visibly pinching the bridge of her nose, trying with all her mental faculties to recall when Kelly ever mentioned a boyfriend in their letters between each other.

"_Surely I didn't...forget something that important in Kelly's life...did I?_" May asked herself.

"It was a few years ago actually," Kelly answered, her eyes still locked firmly at the midpoint of the dining room table, unable to look her guest in the eye.

"Oh..." May thought aloud, remembering how she and Kelly had stopped writing to each other for a nine-month stretch around the time Kelly mentioned. A time when she and Drew had been in the early stages of their relationship and she'd had her nose to the coordinating grindstone on an almost daily basis. They'd still written of course, but the letters had been more like paragraphs, asking mundane questions that you'd ask some stranger you met on the sidewalk.

"That relationship ended not unlike yours did with Drew…badly," Kelly continued, her eyes growing slightly cloudy. May was actually concerned with the way that last word had been uttered by Kelly in a tone that was subdued and emotionally detached as seemed humanly possible. It was almost enough to scare her...but May shoved those fearful tendencies to the back of her mind and leaned slightly towards Kelly, grasping her teacup because she didn't want to disturb Kelly's train of thought just yet.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?" May asked quietly, feeling somewhat ashamed for having not been there for Kelly when this breakup had actually happened rather than years after the fact.

"_Because I couldn't have strung a sentence together in front of you to save my life…"_ Kelly thought to herself. But she can't say that to her friend...not now and not anytime in the near future either.

"...It wasn't exactly something I could put into a letter," Kelly replies after a long pause.

May can only nod, knowing exactly where Kelly is coming from in the matter. She'd dropped everything she'd been doing at the time, even canceling an interview at a radio station, and run home to the comfort of her mother's arms when she'd been confronted with the evidence of Drew's affair. She'd slept fitfully for six hours, dried her eyes as best she could one last time, and caught the first direct transit line back to Petalburg. No doubt Kelly may very well have done the same, though May wouldn't ask that of her at a time like this and lets her friend continue.

"I was a real mess when everything came to a head. I barely managed to finish the term at school, I was prone to crying for no reason, and most of all was the fact that there was never any closure. They never told me..." her breath catches in her throat and May can see Kelly's emotional walls beginning to buckle under the strain.

"It's okay Kelly. You don't have to say anything else until you're ready. I'm not gonna push you to tell me something you just aren't ready to talk about yet..." May assures the young professor. Her words have the desired effect and Kelly's approaching panic-attack symptoms begin to fade as she watches Kelly rein in her emotions over the course of four slow and steady breaths. On the fifth, Kelly finally lifts her head enough to meet May's eyes before continuing.

"Thanks May. As you can see, I'm still not over it. I'm not sure I ever will be. You understand at least a little I think...but the difference is that at least you know WHY..." Kelly can't even bear to say it, so she doesn't. How someone could possibly cheat on May Maple is beyond her ability to understand. That's all there is to it.

May wants so badly to speak ill of Drew, to try and make Kelly understand that it DOESN'T really help knowing 'WHY' when the 'WHY' is something as simple and selfish as a guy wanting to satisfy his raging hormones with a willing participant as well as all the implications that follow such an act, but she holds her tongue with difficulty. Those words are for another time and place as Kelly wouldn't want to understand them now, but May carefully files the knowledge away for another day.

"What you did last night May...wasn't something I ever expected to happen," Kelly continues, having totally missed May's own angered reaction to the mention of her ex's name in her own apparent grief. However, May's attention is now firmly on her young friend as her cheeks promptly turn red and that somewhat familiar sensation of weightlessness begins to fill her gut. May is too stunned by the turn in the conversation to even attempt to interrupt Kelly and in a moment of clarity that both frightens and astonishes her; she finds that she doesn't WANT to interrupt.

"And along with what you said, I have to say that I'm a little nervous about going down this path...not because we're both girls, because I DO feel that there's something between us that I can't explain right now...but I have to be honest when I say that...I can't be hurt again like I was two years ago. I CAN'T. It was hard enough the first time...I don't think I could live with it a second time..." The beginnings of tears burn May's eyes because Kelly's tone has switched from panicked and distraught to being perfectly described by one word...broken.

"Especially from someone I've known and cared about for years. I didn't know that person for very long when they walked out the door and it still hurt far more than anything I've ever suffered before. I'm telling you right now that if someone like you did something similar...it would do more than crush me..." May can actually feel her heart break for her friend as silent tears begin falling from Kelly's eyes. How she's even able to keep talking is beyond May, but Kelly pushes on.

"There would hardly be anything worth picking up again if that happened..."

May easily understood how Kelly was feeling and knowing what that kind of heartbreak felt like (_as if you were a complete failure at romance and not only did it not work for you, but it blows up in your face just to spite your worthless keister_), May stood up and moved to her friend's side, bringing her into a hug like she'd known she needed when she'd caught Drew in the act of being unfaithful.

It took Kelly a few minutes to rein in her emotions once more and May didn't let go of her until Kelly gestured that she was okay for now.

"_GEEZ! And she's got a class to teach in two hours?!"_ May noted, glancing at the clock. Knowing that they needed to wrap this up, especially for Kelly's sake so she could recompose herself enough to get through the day, May pulled another chair over so that she and Kelly were sitting almost knee-to-knee as May then gently takes both of Kelly's hands in her own and May decides to clarify things as best she can.

"I don't know how to convey what I felt last night Kelly. There aren't any words for it yet. But I can tell you that I was being honest too. I don't care how long it takes, I don't care what happens between now and then, but I can promise you without a shadow of doubt in my mind that I will be here for you if you need me until you find that special someone, just like you promised me. I thought we might have been able to talk a little more about 'another time' today before I left, but I can see it's going to take a bit more time," May begins to explain.

"So what I can tell you is that whenever you feel like you need a friend, please call me. I'll listen however I can. When you feel like you wanna spend time with a friend, I'll shuffle stuff around so that I can visit as long as need be. It's not like I'm seriously a contender for the Grand Festival Trophy this year and you're way more important to me than some stupid piece of gold-leafed metal with my name inscribed on it," May continued. Kelly's eyes are tearing up again at May's words, but the young Maple doesn't hesitate.

"We can get through this together Kelly. Mom and Dad always stressed to me that 'One can move ten, but two can move ten thousand', so our chances of overcoming this are only better by sticking together. The rest we can deal with as it comes."

Kelly's silent tears are falling again as she merely nods and hugs May even more fiercely this time around, both young women taking whatever comfort they can in each other's presence, which sadly isn't nearly enough to overcome their situations at this time, because both realize that in a few minutes, they are going to part ways and be separated once again. The only difference between now and years ago is that they are now willing to do whatever it takes to help the other overcome their respective challenges in life, even if they haven't yet said it in so many words.

"And what's more," May says as she guides Kelly's chin up to meet her in the eyes again, "I can also say that I will never willingly bring any more pain into your life Kelly. You've helped me out more than you know by inviting me here this weekend. As long as I'm not completely out of my mind, I will never bring any grief into your life. You have my word on that," May promises.

An overwhelmed Kelly can't help but realize how right she was several minutes ago, because now that May is in front of her (_in her ARMS no less_) and she knows even the barest of details about all the ill that has befallen her friend, Kelly indeed cannot string a sentence together as she continues to hug May fiercely.

Sadly, May notes the time yet again and knows that Kelly will need every bit of it that remains before her morning class to pull herself together. So with a heavy heart, May lifts Kelly's head so that their eyes meet again.

"I have to go now Kelly, but rest assured I'll be back when you need me. The sun's up now and we've both got a life to get back to. Do you want to walk down with me?" May asks her friend as Kelly wipes her eyes and watches May gather her stuff together and strap it to her bike before joining her for the elevator ride down to the lobby, which is nothing but a blur in Kelly's memory save for the image of her friend next to her in the days to come.

Once they are outside, Kelly's mood improves as she watches May limber herself up much more thoroughly this time, stretching out her mildly-complaining leg muscles with even more care than usual.

"_I could get used to seeing that..."_ Kelly thinks to herself, the first coherent thought in almost half an hour to pass through her brain. After a full ten minutes of stretching and several odd looks from the lobby staff, May straightens up and puts up her bike's kickstand.

"Well, I'm off. It's been a great weekend Kelly, let's do it again sometime soon!" May said, doing her absolute best to act like this was going to become a common occurrence in both of their lives.

It is one of the hardest things that Kelly has done in several months, but she finds her voice as May mounts up and positions the foot pedals to her liking.

"C-Call me when you get in to Mauville tonight...so I know that...you're safe and all," Kelly replies, waving as she does so.

"Sure thing! I'll even call you tomorrow when I get home if you want!" May answered back, doing Kelly one better as she surveyed the street traffic in front of her in order to avoid any accidents.

"T-that would be great!" Kelly says, finding her voice yet again, surprising even herself given the condition she'd been in only fifteen minutes ago.

May doesn't turn her head, but merely smiles to herself and gives Kelly a 'thumbs-up' sign as she lets gravity carry her weight downward for the first petal stroke back to Petalburg City, feeling lighter than she has in weeks as she heads for the Lilycove City limits to retrace her trek back home.

Kelly watches her friend petal off down the street with a small smile on her face, but despite May's best efforts, one cannot vanquish a world of heartache in a mere three days and Kelly's silent tears return as she finally loses sight of the Petalburg native. Glancing at her watch, Kelly now notes that she has roughly ninety minutes until her first class of the day. Considering the state she's in, she would prefer a shower before she had to face those she was tasked with teaching this semester, even if it was for Day One Orientation.

Kelly found it hard to compose herself and go about like things were normal as ever as she rode the elevator back up to her apartment to get ready, but May was right; they both had lives they had to get back to living. It was time to move on and Kelly smiled slightly to herself as she found the thought to be not nearly as intimidating when someone like May Maple had your back.

*****

Tuesday

August 19, 2008

18:41 HST

Petalburg City Gym

May pulled up to the gym, once again fully appreciative of the fact that she hadn't had to push herself all day for ONE day to get here from Mauville. With less distance to cover came the decreased traveling speed and she'd been able to coast a fair bit of the way rather than push herself throughout the day.

However, after two full days of pedaling, she was more than ready to collapse into her own bed and sleep til' noon tomorrow because of how exhausted she was. Taking her time on the dismount to ensure she didn't fall over or have her knees buckle, she took the opportunity to walk up to gym's front door to let herself have a small 'cool down' period before she jumped into the shower and then headed for bed.

This train of thought was temporarily put on hold as she noticed a bit of conversation coming from the family quarters while crossing the gym's main arena floor. Once she'd safely stored her bike in the appropriate closet and grabbed her stuff, she made her way towards the dining room near the back of the family quarters. Before entering the room where the sounds of conversation were emanating from, she figured it would only be polite to let everyone inside know they were about to be interrupted.

"I'm home!" May called at a medium volume.

"We're in the dining room May!" Her father answered immediately.

Upon clearing the dining room door, May could see why there was so much more conversation going on than usual, and almost blurted out her surprise as she saw Harley sitting at the table along with the rest of her family.

"Welcome back May! How was your trip to Lilycove?" Max asked, a pleading look in his eyes that only she could see as Max was the closest to the doorway. May merely nodded and did her best to convey that her brother's secret was safe with her yet again.

"It was interesting to say the least. I'm really glad I went. It turns out Kelly was throwing an anniversary party for some colleagues at LCU and invited some familiar faces along with a couple of new ones. We all had a great time!" May replied, her mood still bright as day even though the sun was setting.

"Well that was sure nice of her," Norman thought aloud.

"No kidding, and very romantic for a long-term couple to celebrate it under the stars during an eclipse to boot. You should be taking notes on this honey..." Caroline added, gently ribbing her husband with a small grin on her face.

"Must have been cool to see the eclipse from outside the city where all the lights didn't spoil the view..." Max thought aloud, assuming one of his trademark 'thinking' poses as he did so.

May's attention was suddenly drawn to Harley as he picked up his glass from the table and proceeded to drain what was left of its contents before he rose to address the Maple family.

"I appreciate you having me for dinner Mr. and Mrs. Maple; it's probably one of the best meals I've had in years," Harley began.

"Hey! Don't call them that Harley, you're gonna make 'em feel older than they really are!" Max protested.

"While I don't share my son's reasoning Harley, please do feel free to call us by our first names. It's what we're most used to hearing from everyone except these two anyway," Norman mentioned, gesturing to his two children.

"And just for the record young man, flattery will get you _nowhere_," Caroline said jokingly.

"Very well then Miss Caroline, I'll keep that in mind if I ever visit again," Harley replied.

Silently, a look passed between May and Max, and both of them grinned at Harley's use of the word '_IF'_ when the three of them knew good and well it was only a matter of '_WHEN_'.

"As much as I would love to stay and hear all about May's weekend, I'm afraid I must be going. It's a nice evening for a walk back to the center anyway," Harley said, about to excuse himself.

"I'd be happy to walk you out, if you want?" May offered, seeing a peculiar gleam in Harley's eye that usually meant he had something to say and with the way that gleam had been pointed in her direction, it wasn't hard to put the two together.

"I'd appreciate that May, thank you," Harley replied as he fell into step behind her, covertly brushing his hand against one of Max's that was dangling over the back of his chair and out of his parents' line of sight as he made his exit. Max's only reply was a quick half-wink in Harley's direction, but the message was pretty clear.

'_The Lengths We Go to Maintain Appearances'_

Harley caught up with May and waited until they were nearly at the front door before he spoke again.

"Forgive me if this seems too forward Maybelene, but you almost seemed to be _glowing_ when you said that just now...did something happen this weekend?" Harley asked, the mischief in his gaze now clear as day.

Given all that had happened over the course of the weekend, May wasn't surprised that someone might pick up on her sudden mood change, only that Harley had nailed it even before her parents had. Sighing slightly at how soon someone was going to ask her about the recent development in her relationship with Kelly Cruz-Marin, May decided to err on the side of caution.

"Maybe it did...and maybe it didn't Harley. I will say however that once upon a time two paths diverged in a moonlit wood and that...right now I'm considering taking the path less chosen. Hopefully...it'll make all the difference," May concluded as she opened the Gym's front door and stood to the side, allowing Harley to see himself out.

Briefly, Harley stood his ground and looked straight into May's eyes, searching for something that May probably wouldn't have been able to see even if she'd known what to look for, before a gentle smile made its way onto Harley's face.

"Going instead where there is no path and leaving a trail...good for you Maybelene," Harley trailed off quietly as he briefly stepped towards her placing his left hand on top of her head and then placing a brief kiss to the back of his hand; the closest sign of affection that Harley had ever offered anyone to May's knowledge, her brother included.

May didn't feel the need for words as she locked the Gym's front door for the night, informed her family that she was turning in for the night after a shower, and headed upstairs. As she tossed all her packs and gear onto the floor of her room, she made her way over to the cordless phone on her desk and dialed a number she now knew from memory with a genuine smile on her face.

A few moments later, it connected and May continued to prepare for her shower as the Lilycove native on the other end bid her 'hello'.

"Hey, it's me..." May said as her bedroom door closed, blocking out the remainder of the phone call from the rest of the house.

*****

Author's Note: With all Four Acts now posted, I feel secure in informing all you readers that an Epilogue is currently in the works and should be posted very soon. It will be a total of two scenes between four characters and here's hoping that you will all enjoy it!

Please leave a review with constructive criticism if you haven't done so already, and this is Newtype, signing off.


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